The driver of which vehicle has the priority in traffic?

Explanation

The tram driver.

At this junction the green light is on for the tram's route and the tram is entering the junction; the red car reaches this same junction from the minor road on the left. Priority belongs to the tram, and the car must stop and let the rails clear.

The governing rule has two layers, and both reach the same conclusion. First layer: the main green is lit for the tram's direction, so the tram's path is open. Second layer — the more important one — is that in equal conditions a rail vehicle takes precedence over a non-rail vehicle, regardless of its direction of travel. That is, even if the tram does not come from your right, and even if it intends to turn, it still goes first.

The technical reason for this precedence is simple and convincing: a tram cannot steer and get round an obstacle, its path is locked to the rails, and because of its great mass its stopping distance is several times a passenger car's. So the most economical and safest division of duty is for the car — which is both nimbler and quicker to stop — to give way. Memorise the exceptions too: a tram moving on the arrow of an additional section, or leaving the depot, does not have this precedence. In this picture neither of those two cases applies.

• The car reaches a junction whose rail route is open, from a minor road; neither the light permits it nor the rule on the precedence of rail vehicles. Hurrying to "get past in front of the tram" is exactly the behaviour that produces these crashes.

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