Tram and bus
| What the rule says | Where it goes wrong | |
|---|---|---|
| Priority at junctions | The tram is an EXCEPTION to the priority-to-the-right rule: drivers give way to tram drivers — even when the tram comes from the left. | Turning this into “the tram always goes first”. The exception sits in art. 15 and is about JUNCTIONS; traffic lights (art. 64) and instructions (art. 82) still prevail over it. |
| The tram turns | Art. 18(1) and (2) — the turning driver's duty to give way to oncoming traffic and to traffic beside or close behind — do NOT apply to the tram. | Staying alongside a turning tram assuming it must let you go first. It need not, and its rear end swings out. |
| Passengers boarding or alighting | Passing on the boarding side is allowed only if you GIVE passengers the opportunity to board and alight. Applies to tram and bus alike. | Thinking only of the tram. Art. 52 names the bus in the same sentence, and at a bus stop without an island passengers step straight onto the carriageway. |
| The bus pulls away from the stop | INSIDE a built-up area you must give a bus the opportunity to pull away AS SOON AS it signals with its indicator. Military convoys and funeral corteges excepted (para. 2). | Forgetting two limits. Outside a built-up area this does NOT apply, and without an indicator neither: then it is ordinary merging traffic that must give way to you. |
| Tram and bus lights | White or flashing white: go. Amber: stop, with the same exception as at ordinary lights. Red: stop. | Mistaking white for “off” or “out of service”. Here white is the GREEN of this signal family — a separate colour language for tram and scheduled bus. |
| Bus lane and bus stop | Above the lane, “BUS” means scheduled and other buses only; “LIJNBUS” means scheduled buses only. Standing is forbidden on the carriageway ALONGSIDE a bus lane and at the bus stop sign — within the block marking, or without marking within 12 metres of the sign. | Thinking the ban is about the bus lane itself. Art. 23(1)(f) forbids standing on the carriageway BESIDE it — exactly where you would want to stop “just briefly”. |
The law itself
RVV1990 art. 15 lid 2RVV1990 art. 18 lid 3RVV1990 art. 52RVV1990 art. 56 lid 1RVV1990 art. 56 lid 2RVV1990 art. 70 lid 1RVV1990 art. 73RVV1990 art. 23 lid 1RVV1990 art. 81RVV1990 art. 1
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