Traffic

In many parts of the world traffic is generally organized, flowing in lanes of travel for a particular direction, with interchanges, traffic signals, or signage at intersections to facilitate the orderly and timely flow of traffic. Traffic can be separated into vehicular, non-vehicular (bicycling), and pedestrian classes of traffic. Vehicles of the same class share their speed limits and share easement with one another. Cooperative signaling arrangements can also be made with representatives of other classes of traffic.

Turning

Vehicles will often want to cease to travel in a straight line and turn onto another road. The vehicle's directional signals (blinkers) are often used as a way to announce one's the intention to turn, thus alerting other drivers. The actual usage of blinkers vary greatly amongst countries. Turning traffic must usually yield the right of way to oncoming traffic - on right-driving countries, vehicles must yield when performing a left turn; on left-driving countries vehicles must yield when performing a right turn. This will usually mean that turning traffic will have to stop in order to wait for a breach to turn, and this might cause inconvenience for vehicles that follow them but do not want to turn. This is why sometimes "protected lanes" for turning are provided, that is, a special lane where vehicles can wait without standing in the way of traffic. On busier intersections where a protected lane would be ineffective or cannot be built, turning may be entirely prohibited, and drivers will be required to "drive around the block" in order to accomplish the turn.

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On roads with multiple lanes, turning traffic is generally expected to move to the lane closest to the direction they wish to turn. For example, traffic intending to turn right will usually move to the rightmost lane before the intersection. Likewise, left-turning traffic will move to the leftmost lane. Exceptions to this rule may exist where for example the traffic authority decides that the two rightmost lanes will be for turning right, in which case drivers may take whichever of them to turn. On certain parts of the world traffic will adapt to informal patterns that rise naturally rather than by force of authority: for example, in Brazil and elsewhere it is common for drivers to observe (and trust) the turn signals used by other drivers in order to make turns from other lanes. For example if several vehicles on the right lane are all turning right, a vehicle may come from the next-to-right lane and turn right as well, doing so in parallel with the other right-turning vehicles.

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