the.com/right of way
The legal permission to go first, which two cars never agree you have
means The legal or customary right to proceed before others, whether on a road, waterway, or railway, or to pass through someone else's land along a set route.
from A 19th-century legal compound — 'right' (a lawful entitlement, from Old English 'riht') plus 'way' (passage, path, from Old English 'weg'). It first took hold in English law and railway regulation, where tracks and crossings needed clear rules about who moved first, then widened to cover roads, footpaths crossing private land, and eventually the general traffic sense of who yields to whom.
- not entitlement
- no one has it, others only yield it
- courts care
- fault often hinges on who legally should've yielded
- pedestrian myth
- crosswalks grant it, not just existing on foot
- easements version
- also means a legal path across someone else's land