GARDEN ROUTE | KAROO NEWS - A four-way stop is a simple tool to ensure smooth traffic flow at a dangerous or busy intersection.

At an intersection where two roads meet some form of traffic control is needed to make this intersection safe, therefore a four-way stop is introduced. 

Cars will be approaching from four directions, and without some sort of control, there will be accidents.

A four-way stop is when there is a stop sign at each of the four points of entry to the intersection.

This means that every car approaching must not only slow down but come to a complete stop before proceeding when it is safe to do so.

This is easy when there is only one vehicle at the intersection: you slow down, stop, look left and right to see that no one is going to jump the intersection and proceed.

When there is another vehicle, things get slightly more complicated, but not much. 

The golden rule with four-way stops is: first come, first proceed. 

So if you approach a four-way stop and there is one car at each other stop street, you need to wait for every car there to go before you. They should proceed in the order they arrived.

If there are queues of cars at the four-way stop, things still proceed as per the golden rule: first come, first proceed. What the rule means here, though, is that it is the first car to reach the Stop line to proceed, so if there are three cars backed up at another stop sign when you arrive, you only wait for the car at the front of that queue, then you go.

If two cars arrive at the intersection at the same time, the one wanting to turn left and the other wanting to turn right, it is the vehicle wanting to turn left that has right of way.

If four cars all arrive at the intersection at the same time, the consensus is that the car on the right should yield to the car on the left.

Also remember that when your get to a four-way intersection with traffic lights, but the traffic lights are not working, you need to treat the intersection as a four-way stop!

If everyone does the above, then traffic will proceed surprisingly quickly and smoothly.

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