Right of way in Norway – the rules, in the order they apply

Signs and signals come before priority to the right

The priority-to-the-right rule (høyreregelen) applies only when nothing else governs the junction. If the junction is signed — give way, stop, priority road — or has traffic lights, the sign or the light decides, and priority to the right never enters the picture.

That is why a right-of-way question can rarely be answered by looking at the cars alone: you have to look at what stands beside the road first. A question showing an unsigned junction is asking about priority to the right; one with a sign is asking about something else.

Priority to the right

When nothing else applies, you must give way to traffic coming from your right. It applies even in junctions that feel like “the main road” to you — the impression that your road is the bigger one has no legal weight without a sign.

The rule governs drivers among themselves. Pedestrians on crossings and cyclists follow their own rules, and those can oblige you to give way even where priority to the right does not.

Situations that oblige you regardless

Some manoeuvres make you give way to all other traffic, whichever side it comes from: driving out of a property, car park, petrol station or pedestrian street; reversing; and entering a roundabout, where you give way to traffic already in it. Trams, as a rule, have priority.

And above all of it: giving way means not being an obstruction or a danger. That is not satisfied by having made it through — it is satisfied when the other road user did not have to change speed or course because of you.

Practise the topic

The right-of-way practice gives you questions with an illustration of the situation and an explanation citing the traffic rules on every answer. A free account gets a fixed sample of five questions in this topic; full access opens the whole topic and all the others.