What's the law around indicating in this scenario?
What's the law around indicating in this scenario?
TMR put this up on their Facebook asking who has to give way, but that's too easy. A much more complicated question is: what does the law say around indicating?
I've seen people say only blue must indicate, others say both must indicate, and yet others say neither must indicate. Which is correct?
Why would orange indicate? Blue is merging into orange's lane. Orange is going straight. Blue indicates.
I think there are two types of merges, this one is 2 into 1, not left lane ending
Transport Operations (Road Use Management—Road Rules) Regulation 2009 QLD
Section 149
Giving way when lines of traffic merge into a single line of trafficA driver in a line of traffic that is merging with 1 or more lines of traffic travelling in the same direction as the driver must give way to a vehicle in another line of traffic if any part of the vehicle is ahead of the driver’s vehicle.
Maximum penalty—20 penalty units.
Yup, that part is easy enough. The part in doubt is who has to indicate in this scenario. I contend section 45(2) and (3) both apply, so both drivers must indicate (blue indicate right, orange indicate left). Others have made cases for only blue, or for neither.
@Zagorath
Only blue indicates, because they are the only one making a physical lateral movement with respect to their lane. The bike keeps straight with respect to their lane so no need to indicate.
What's a penalty unit?
@observes_depths
This financial year it is $161.30They say "penalty unit" so that each time they increase the fine amount, they only have to update the legislation in one place - the place where the value of a penalty unit is defined. Otherwise, every time the fine amount changes, they would have to recalculate all the penalties and update the legislation in hundreds of places with a new dollar amount.
In Spain you are supposed to indicate even when changing lanes in any road, for each lane you cross. So obviously what is shown is correct.
In Australia you also indicate when changing lanes. The catch is that in this scenario, you aren't really changing lanes in that way. See where the dashed line ends? After that point there is only one lane in the direction of travel. It makes it a little less clear.
I have 3 of these near me and I can tell you nobody indicates. Who has right of way? The dickhead who is speeding to get ahead first.
Edit: whoops this is a Brisbane question. My apologies.
Who has right of way? The dickhead who is speeding to get ahead first.
whoops this is Brisbane question. My apologies.
Still a pretty relevant response given some driver in Brissy unfortunately. Most of them are pretty solid here though to be honest. It’s refreshing. Some days during the commute most drivers are straight up reasonable. Coming from NSW, shits weird.
Who has right of way?
Whoever is in front has right of way at these. It's unlike a situation where one lane ends (indicated by a dotted line that runs out), in which case the person in the continuing lane has right of way.
whoops this is a Brisbane question
You could take a look at your state's laws to verify, but I strongly suspect the answer will be the same wherever in Australia you go. Our road rules are relatively standardised, even though it's all state legislation.
Of course whoever is in front has the right of way but sometimes you have smartarses coming up beside you to overtake. All I'm saying is let them go ahead. It's not worth your life to prove a point.
That seems like a pretty stupid road design. Where I live one lane always has the dashed line go to the edge of the road to indicate which lane is ending and which lane is continuous, where the vehicle in the lane that's ending is the one to require indicators. There's never two lanes that just combine into one with no way to tell who has the right of way.
There is a way to know, it’s called a zipper merge as defined in a link I posted elsewhere in this post. They are done to reduce congestion and I suspect at times, post hoc on roads where there isn’t enough space for a proper lane end/merge.
Yeah you don't usually see it like in this image. It tends to be that where two lanes merge, it's more like a road narrowing equally between both lanes, rather than one lane appearing to end while the other appears to continue. The Gailey Rd screenshots I've posted elsewhere in this thread are an example.
I'm not from the land of Oz but everything I can see online from official state sources does not specifically say, but all their demo videos have the person in the left lane indicate and the one in the right lane doesn't. E.g. the one around merging on this page or the images and video on this page.
I couldn't find anything with it written down, but it seems to be implied that in a merging scenario it's the left lane ending and they need to indicate into the right lane which continues as the only lane.
This is in contrast to NZ where everything I can find says both vehicles indicate.
How would the bike indicate in this scenario? With a left indication while not changing direction or lane? I would interpret that signal as them wanting to leave the road on the left side after the merge and indicating it impatiently.
In the example videos, the vehicle in the bike's position did not indicate. It's not explicitly covered but it seems like the expectation is that only the vehicle in the left lane indicates (i.e. only the car, not the motorbike).
That's for Australia. In NZ it seems the expectation is that both vehicles indicate (this is how I do it, but I'm in NZ so that makes sense).
Neither country seems to explicitly say it's required in official information.
I never understood why the indication, left lane is still the left lane and conversely so is the right lane still the right lane. Back last millenia when I got my license, the instructor said I don't need to indicate so I just continued their teachings. When there are 3 or more dropping down, then I understand as there's usually a bus lane or turn that is near also.
The instructor said I don't need to indicate
This explains so much. These days the manual says you must indicate pretty much for every turn (and lane change) short the road curving. Which I agree with, the amount of people changing lanes or turning without indicating and nearly causing an accident shits me. Same with people who indicate last second for 1/50th of a second. As the old man says “they’re called indicators not commentators” they meant to give an indication of what you’re about to do.
Tangentially before moving to Brisbane I lived in a small rural “city” full of roundabouts. You could speculate the age of a driver pretty accurately by whether they indicated coming off a roundabout or not.
Isn’t this a zipper merge? Blue indicates, orange must yield.
The arguments as I understand them:
Blue is deviating from their line, orange is continuing straight, therefore only blue indicates.
Blue is merging to the right, orange is merging to the left, therefore both must indicate towards the side they are merging to.
Neither blue nor orange are changing lanes, they are simply entering the lane that their lane becomes. Therefore neither indicates.
Blue is “changing lane”, if they continued straight they’d go off the road. At least in the NSW drivers manual this is specified as a zipper merge. I treat them the same in Brisbane.
Blues lane is ending, of the two only one has to alter their steering wheel (or in the bikes case, leading wheel) to stay on the road. The orange vehicle is simply driving straight. The centreline of the road is indicative of this.
When you’re driving on a road and the number of lanes or lines of traffic reduces, and there are no longer any road markings, you must give way to the vehicle that’s ahead of you. This is called a zipper merge.
Sauce
That's a user-friendly advisory article. I'm asking what's specifically in the legislation. It also doesn't actually say anything about indicating, only implies it in the graphics. No text or speech ever discusses indication.
Blues lane is ending
No, two lanes are merging. That's why this is different to a situation where one lane ends, in which case the continuing lane always has right of way.
Here's what I think is the relevant legislation.
My interpretation is that both are "entering a line of traffic" to the right or left, so both should indicate. But I'm far from confident.
Seems fairly straightforward. The car is ahead of the motorcycle, so the bike should give way. Of course, he won't, and he's in the car's blind spot, so he'll get angry and break the car's passenger side mirror in passing. The car driver having no clue, will get angry in turn, and swerve into the biker, and they'll both crash. The car behind them will catch the whole thing on dashcam and post it on Facebook, asking, "who's at fault here?"
People will blame the guy on the bicycle.
This is where you go back to rules 1 and 2 if driving;
- Don’t try to occupy the same space as someone else.
- Don’t be a dick. (Sorry; correct rule 2 is to assume that everyone behind the wheel of a car is an idiot (including yourself)).
Here's a relevant TMR section on the website to do with merging in these situations. Noticeably (and it's more apparent in the video), they only ever show the car in the left lane indicating.
https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/rules/road/lanesWhat they show in pictures is not what's written in the law. It wouldn't be the first time TMR's interpretation in supplemental material misunderstood the law.
is that a common street configuration in australia? I think it should always be the fast lane, which is eliminated. That would making indicating and giving way easier: all of it is the responsibility of the one using the faster lane.
Exactly like seen in here is not super common, in my experience. Usually in this situation the left lane would end instead of both lanes merging into 1. That is shown by the dotted line continuing until the end.
When two lanes merge, it tends to be at a narrowing of both lanes fairly equally.