Why Right-of-

Way Thinking

Can Be Deadly:

The Issue Drivers Don’t See

By La Velle Goodwin Collision Prevention Specialist Founder, Driving Hero Academy Most serious intersection collisions don’t occur because drivers break the law - they occur because drivers fail to see or correctly interpret developing threats. Data from U.S. and Canadian studies shows that recognition errors, misjudgment of gaps, and over-reliance on right-of- way rules dominate collision causation. This article explains why ordinary drivers are vulnerable at intersections and what strategic driving practices can prevent collisions.

Key Takeaways

• Roughly one-quarter of U.S. traffic fatalities and about half of all traffic injuries occur at intersections. Source: Federal Highway Administration – Intersection Safety • In the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey (NMVCCS), roughly 96% of intersection collision events had driver-attributed critical reasons, with recognition errors dominating. Source: NMVCCS – National Academies Press • Recognition errors - failing to see or misinterpreting hazards - are the largest driver-related cause of collisions. • Legal right-of-way is a coordination tool, not a safety guarantee. • Skilled drivers shift focus from “Do I have priority?” to “What could go wrong here right now?”

The Trap Most Drivers

Fall Into

Most drivers are trained to follow rules and assume that compliance equates to safety. Over time, this leads to predictable vulnerabilities: • Late threat recognition • Narrow or incomplete scanning • Overcommitment to a chosen path of travel • No contingency planning if expectations are violated These drivers are not reckless. They are rule-focused, and rule-focus without threat awareness can blind drivers to developing hazards. Rules organize traffic but cannot substitute for real-time threat assessment.

The Data Behind the

Problem

According to the Federal Highway Administration, intersections account for roughly one-quarter of traffic fatalities and about half of all injuries. In the NMVCCS crash causation survey, roughly 96% of intersection collision events were driver- attributed, meaning the last failure in the chain was linked to driver behavior - not legal fault or recklessness. Recognition errors - such as inattention, inadequate surveillance, or failing to detect another road user in time - were the largest single category. Canadian collision patterns at intersections show nearly identical trends, reinforcing the global relevance of these findings.

Survival Requires a

Different Question

Rule-based driving asks: “Do I have the right of way?” Crash-avoidance driving asks: “What could go wrong here right now?” Skilled drivers evaluate: • Time-to-conflict rather than assumed priority • Speed differentials rather than signals alone • Line-of-sight limitations rather than ideal behaviours • Probability of human error rather than expected compliance This is the difference between compliance driving and strategic driving.

Why Recognition Errors

Kill

Recognition errors account for roughly four out of ten crashes when categorized conservatively. When related subcategories are combined, recognition failures represent approximately half of all collision events. Decision errors - misjudging gaps, assuming another driver’s intent, or driving too fast for conditions - account for an additional one-third of intersection collisions. Together, this shows that the majority of serious collisions occur because drivers either fail to see the hazard or misjudge it, not because they break rules knowingly.

The Older Driver

Paradox

NHTSA’s analysis shows older drivers are disproportionately involved in failure-to-yield collisions at stop signs and traffic signals, despite obeying all traffic controls. Common contributing factors: • Inadequate surveillance • Misjudgment of another vehicle’s speed or gap • Turning with an obstructed view These drivers rely on the rule rather than active threat assessment, exposing a systemic vulnerability.

How Licensing and

Testing Reinforce the

Problem

Driver exams reward: • Rule adherence • Procedural correctness • Visible compliance They don’t test: • Early threat detection • Predictive scanning patterns • Risk calibration under uncertainty • Decision-making with incomplete information • Recognition of visual obstructions and human error As a result, drivers graduate thinking the system has prepared them for real-world driving, when data shows otherwise.

Most Fatal Collisions

Don’t Involve “Bad

Drivers”

• They involve ordinary people on ordinary trips • Ordinary decisions made a fraction of a second too late Right-of-way failures consistently rank among the top contributing factors in fatal intersection collisions. Collisions occur not because rules were broken but because rules were trusted to provide protection.

The Four Most

Dangerous Assumptions

at Intersections

• “I have the green light, so it’s safe to go.” • “They’re slowing down; they see me.” • “The other driver will follow the rules.” • “I stopped, so I’m good to go.” Rule compliance cannot substitute for scanning, threat anticipation, and margin-building.

A Better Way to Think

About Right-of-Way

Right-of-way is a coordination tool, not a shield. Legally, drivers must yield when conditions demand it - no one truly “has” the right-of-way until another driver yields through their actions. Skilled drivers: • Yield even when legally entitled • Delay when information is incomplete • Sacrifice priority for margin • Treat legality as secondary to survivability This is strategic driving.

Cognitive Tunnelling:

Why Rules Can Blind

Drivers

Focusing exclusively on rule compliance narrows attention and excludes peripheral hazards. Drivers ask: “Did I stop fully?” instead of “What behaviour cannot be perceived from here?” Recognition failures are consistent because drivers aren’t trained to look for the threats that actually matter.

The Goal Isn’t to Be

Right. It’s to Get Home

Safe driving is about managing risk where: • Humans make mistakes • Attention fails • Conditions change • Physics never negotiates Right-of-way organizes traffic; assuming it does anything more can be deadly.

Frequently Asked

Questions

Q: What causes most serious intersection collisions? A: Recognition errors - failure to notice or misinterpret hazards - account for the majority of serious intersection collisions. Q: Does having the right-of- way make driving safe? A: No. Right-of-way is a coordination tool, not a safety guarantee. Blind reliance leads to collisions. Q: How common are driver- related causes in collisions? A: In NMVCCS, about 96% of intersection collision events were driver-attributed. Q: How can drivers prevent collisions at intersections? A: Focus on threat anticipation, strategic scanning, assuming others may not follow rules, and leaving margin for error.

About the Author

La Velle Goodwin has spent nearly three decades thinking about why driver behavior is so hard to change, and how to actually change it. Her path into road safety was not a career plan. Hired into the sales department at Young Drivers of Canada, she was required to take the program as a condition of employment. She went from believing her aggressive driving habits were a sign of skill to recognizing they had been a sustained act of luck. That shift was sharp enough that she immersed herself in crash research, driver psychology, and industry training standards before becoming their on-air expert for media, and eventually completing YDC's instructor certification, a process requiring more than four times the training of a standard driving instructor license with mandatory annual recertification requiring instructors to retrain and meet progressively higher scoring targets on practical in-car exams, advancing through successive certification levels as a condition of continued employment. She delivered YDC's commercial driver training program, Collision Free, working directly with experienced drivers and observing firsthand the attitudes, blind spots, and psychological reluctance that make behavior change so difficult to achieve in professional driver populations. After leaving YDC, she founded an entertainment company producing live, interactive events for corporate clients including oil and gas companies, Canada Post, and the Calgary Board of Education. Every program was built on a single mechanism: competitive psychology. She learned, in practice, how to use the human drive to compete to move people toward behavior they would never choose on their own. She has been combining those two bodies of expertise ever since, and it is the reason she understands not just why drivers trust rules over threat assessment, but how to build fleets that don't.