The Four-Way Stop

Somerset west’s most democratic institution
An examination of how we navigate the intersection, what we communicate through eye contact and small forward movements and why the one in Pepper Tree Road has its own customs

There is no purer expression of civic life in Somerset West than the four-way stop.

At a traffic light, you obey a machine. At a yield sign, you defer to the road. But at a four-way stop, you must negotiate directly with other human beings using only your eyes, your bumper and whatever you can communicate through the windscreen of a vehicle. It is, in this sense, democracy in its most immediate form: everyone has an equal vote, the rules are technically clear and yet somehow every interaction requires fresh interpretation.

We love it. We find it maddening. We have been driving to it for forty years and it still occasionally surprises us.

HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK

The four-way stop rule is simple. First to arrive, first to go. If two vehicles arrive simultaneously, the one to the right has priority. If three or four vehicles arrive simultaneously — a rarer event but one that produces the most interesting social dynamics — the rule extends logically and everyone works it out in sequence.

This is what Meneer Swanepoel taught. This is what the K53 handbook says. This is the correct answer.

HOW IT ACTUALLY WORKS

At a Somerset West four-way stop, the following additional variables apply:

The Confident Wave. One driver, having arrived first, decides for reasons of generosity or impatience to wave another driver through. The waved driver accepts or declines. If they decline — indicating with a small wave back that no, please, you go — a brief exchange follows that resembles two people trying to pay for lunch, conducted at low speed in the rain.

The Creep. A vehicle eases forward by approximately twenty centimetres. This is not a go. It is a declaration of intent, a statement that says: I believe it is my turn and I want you to be aware of this belief, but I am not yet committing. The Creep is answered either by yielding or by a counter-creep, which is a creep issued in response to indicate that the other driver disputes the claim. Two counter-creeps cancel each other out and everyone must start again.

The Unexpected Go. Someone goes when it was not their turn. This is absorbed by the other drivers through a slight tensing of the jaw and a short pause, after which life continues. Somerset West four-way stops are, on the whole, forgiving institutions.

The Eye Contact Hold. Two drivers look directly at each other for a moment in which everything is communicated: who arrived first, who is in a hurry, who is willing to defer and who is, frankly, not in the mood today. The Eye Contact Hold resolves the majority of ambiguous situations and is, we believe, a genuine social skill that is not formally taught but should be.

THE PEPPER TREE ROAD EXCEPTION

We are not in a position to name the exact intersection for legal reasons, but there is a four-way stop in the Somerset West area that has, over time, developed its own local customs with no basis in the National Road Traffic Act.

At this intersection, traffic flowing in one particular direction is, by unspoken community agreement, given informal priority during the morning peak. This is not signposted. It is not legal. It is simply what happens, because at some point years ago a pattern established itself and nobody has successfully challenged it since. Newcomers to the intersection are absorbed into the custom within approximately three visits. Those who resist it are gently outnumbered until they stop resisting.

We consider this remarkable. A community, without any formal process, agreed on a modification to road law and implemented it through sheer collective will. If the municipality could channel this energy into actual infrastructure decisions, Somerset West would have functioning stormwater drains within the year.

CONCLUSION

The four-way stop is the Helderberg at its most characterful: rule-governed in principle, human in practice, generally functional and occasionally infuriating. It rewards patience, eye contact and the willingness to occasionally let someone else go first even when you were technically there before them.

This is not a bad way to run an intersection.

It is, arguably, not a bad way to run anything.

Corrections: Last month’s parking lot survey referred to “The Surrendered” as a parking category. Several readers wrote in to say they prefer “The Pragmatist.” We accept this revision.

THE HELDERBURGER
Motoring Desk

Kobus Liebenberg