A city bus pulls away from a stop intending to merge into your lane and signals that intention. How should you respond?

Why A is correct

Transit could not function if a bus lost its place every time it stopped, and most states therefore give a bus signalling its intention to re-enter traffic from a designated stop the right to do so. Beyond the legal rule sits a practical one: buses are heavy, slow to gather speed and physically cannot be bullied. A driver accelerating to close the gap is gambling that the operator will concede, and losing that gamble produces a collision involving dozens of passengers. Yielding costs a few seconds, and it is predictable — which is exactly what everyone around you needs it to be.

Why the other options are wrong

B. Accelerate to get past before it reaches you

Accelerating turns a manageable merge into a contest of mass. The bus cannot stop quickly and its operator may not have seen the gap closing from behind them at all.

C. Hold your position and sound the horn so the operator knows you are there

Holding position sounds neutral but communicates nothing actionable. An operator mid-merge reads a stationary car as a decision already made, and the horn arrives far too late to change anything.

D. Nothing changes — whichever vehicle is ahead owns the lane

Being physically ahead does not settle right of way in a merge out of a stop. The signalling bus has a specific entitlement that ordinary queuing does not override.

On the road

A bus pulls away from a stop and the car beside it accelerates to hold its place. Nobody wins the next four seconds, and everyone on board spends them. The driver who simply lifted off reached the same light half a minute later.

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