The driver of which vehicle must give way?

Explanation

The car drivers; both the blue lorry and the red car must give way to the tram.

At a junction of equal-status roads, a tram has priority over all non-rail vehicles, and that priority does not depend on the tram's direction of travel; whether it goes straight or its path turns within the junction, it is still the one that passes first. In the picture the rails enter the junction from the left and change direction, and both vehicles — the blue lorry and the red car beside it — want to cross those same rails. So both drivers are obliged to stop and give way.

The reason for this precedence is technical, not ceremonial. A tram weighs tens of tonnes, is locked onto rails and cannot under any circumstances steer round an obstacle; its stopping distance is also several times that of a passenger car. If a car stays on the rails, all the tram driver can do is brake, and in many cases that is not enough. A collision between a tram and a car almost always ends badly for the car.

The trap in this question is thinking in the singular: the candidate looks for "one" driver who must give way and usually picks the lorry because it is larger and closer. But the weight and dimensions of a vehicle play no part in priority; anything without rails gives way to a tram.

• This option is tempting because the tram's path changes within the junction and many imagine that a turning vehicle must give way; but a tram keeps its priority regardless of direction of travel. • The blue lorry really must give way, but this option is incomplete: the red car is also a non-rail vehicle and has exactly the same duty. An answer naming only one of the two is wrong.

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