Lane merge road rule quiz baffles drivers: Can you answer it?

Many think this road rule shouldn’t take a genius to figure out — but some drivers think following it could actually be more dangerous.

Motorists have been stumped by a confusing road rule that might not be better than people just using their “common sense”.

Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads posted a simple quiz on the road rules surrounding who should give way when two lanes merge into one, but if the department was looking for simple answers then they came to the wrong place.

“You know your road rules,” the quiz began optimistically.

“Two cars need to merge into one lane, who goes first?”

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The blue car is supposed to let the orange car merge ahead of it.

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The answer is the orange car because it’s ahead of the blue car even ever so slightly.

“When lines of traffic merge, you must give way to any vehicle that’s ahead of you,” Transport and Main Roads clarified in a comment.

“Lines of traffic refers to adjacent rows of vehicles that don’t have a lane separation line between them. Here the blue car must give way to the orange.

If you’ve ever driven anywhere you’ll know people don’t always follow the letter of road rules, and there were plenty of respondents who thought the rule was the other way around, or potentially not worth following in the first place.

“In some situations it is better for the flow of traffic if the one in front goes first as in this scenario,” one commenter argued.

“In other situations it is dangerous for the right lane to slow down to let the left lane in,” they added.

The focus for many who disputed the rule was safety and common sense, after all you can have right of way but it won’t stop you getting in a car crash.

“Even though the orange car has right of way, if I was in the orange car, I would slow down before merging as the blue car could speed up, like they do most of the time,” another respondent said.

“Common sense is to merge if its safe to do so, regardless of whether you have right of way. Annoying but safer!”

“The driver of the blue car needs to speed up and block the exit of the orange car,” another wrote, citing the “true insight” they’ve gained “using the M1 from the Gold Coast all the way to Gympie”.