When driving through the intersection straight

Explanation

You must give way to the blue passenger car's driver.

Look carefully at the light on the right: the main red light is lit, and beneath it the additional section is lit with a green arrow pointing upwards. This combination means straight-ahead movement is permitted to you, but not on a full green; rather on the arrow of the additional section while the main light is red.

The governing rule concerns exactly this state: whenever you move in the direction of an arrow lit in the additional section while the main light is simultaneously red or amber, you must give way to vehicles coming from other directions. That is why the blue passenger car, which enters the junction from the road on the left and has a green light for its own direction, takes precedence.

The safety logic of this rule is precisely that the arrow of an additional section is not a "secured path". A full green means the signal system has stopped the crossing directions. But an additional arrow on red is only a conditional permission: it opens the way without guaranteeing that nobody is coming across. If a driver does not know this difference, he enters the junction at full-green speed and lands right in the middle of the crossing flow.

A point to memorise, very frequent in the exam: always read the colour of the main light together with the arrow of the additional section. Green arrow + main red means "go, but give way". Green arrow + main green means "go, you take precedence". That single difference changes the answer to dozens of questions.

• It assumes a green arrow is the same as a full green. But the arrow of an additional section simultaneous with a main red gives conditional permission and obliges you to give way to the other directions.

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