Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mlyle 859 days ago
Alternating pairs emerges directly from those rules. Once one person goes north, a non-conflicting person can go south. Then, the current east and west people have arrived before the new north and south people.
1 comments

It doesn't though.

Unless the North & South people arrive at the intersection at the exact same time they must still come to a complete stop. While say the South person is stopping an East person could have finished their stop and since the North car has passed by them they can enter the intersection.

Sure as the intersection backs up it becomes very likely that the North-bound person will be blocking an East person from entering the intersection such that the South person can enter. But just because a car is coming at you in an intersection doesn't mean you can legally enter it.

By convention though, literally every East bound person is going to expect the South bound person to travel at the same time as the North bound one. My point is strictly that the law doesn't require this and under some circumstances the South bound person may be breaking the law.

> But just because a car is coming at you in an intersection doesn't mean you can legally enter it.

I would argue you can; if you only have to yield to someone who is unable to enter the intersection for other reasons, you are free to go.

> By convention though, literally every East bound person is going to expect the South bound person to travel at the same time as the North bound one.

Sure; it's worth assuming that the Southbound person has slightly screwed up timing instead of forfeiting what would normally be "their turn".