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A car stopped in a left-only lane (not a traffic signal/intersection) on a main street and was making a u-turn (it is not prohibited) and no-through traffic from the opposite side. The car turns and has reached half-way at an angle into the third-lane (4-lane each way). At same time, a driver coming out of a parking lot takes a right and tried to move to the same lane and not the right-most(closest to curb) and meets this above car in an accident.

Since the car in the left-turn lane is on a main road, do they have right-of-way over the parking lot car. The first car turned into the lanes even before the other car drove out of the parking lot. Is there a law about who takes precedence in this case?

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No party is granted the right of way, instead, some party is required to yield the right of way. Sec. 545.155 of the Texas Transportation Code says

An operator about to enter or cross a highway from an alley, building, or private road or driveway shall yield the right-of-way to a vehicle approaching on the highway to be entered.

Sec. 545.256 likewise requires that

An operator emerging from an alley, driveway, or building in a business or residence district shall:

(1) stop the vehicle before moving on a sidewalk or the sidewalk area extending across an alley or driveway;

(2) yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian to avoid collision; and

(3) on entering the roadway, yield the right-of-way to an approaching vehicle.

The law against wide right turns says "To make a right turn at an intersection, an operator shall make both the approach and the turn as closely as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway"; intersection "means the common area at the junction of two highways, other than the junction of an alley and a highway", and highway or street "means the width between the boundary lines of a publicly maintained way any part of which is open to the public for vehicular travel", i.e. the part where the parking lot empties into the main road.

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    "No party is granted the right of way, instead, some party is required to yield the right of way" To-may-toe, to-ma-toe. By defining who must yield, you implicitly define who has the right of way. "An operator about to enter or cross a highway from an alley, building, or private road or driveway shall yield the right-of-way to a vehicle approaching on the highway to be entered." Would a vehicle making a U-turn already be in the highway, and thus the parked car must yield to it?
    – Andy
    Mar 17, 2020 at 23:37
  • @Andy: If the laws of human governments would require vehicle X to yield the right of way to vehicle Y, but the laws of Sir Isaac Newton would forbid it from doing so, vehicle Y does not have the right of way. If a driver of Y can see that X is not yielding the right of way, Y would have a duty to avoid hitting X, independent of any duty X might have to yield the right of way.
    – supercat
    Apr 17 at 20:47

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