"It's first come, first served," said Kevin Lacy, the state traffic engineer. "If two vehicles arrive at the same time, then you yield to the one on the right."

The law begins to look murky when you roll up to one of the four red octagon signs at Honeycutt and Durant roads in northern Wake County.

"Normally, it is a kind of alternating north/south goes -- and then east/west goes," said Chandler Francis, who passes through this intersection every day. "If someone is turning left, then for the most part folks are very courteous."

For the most part, yes.

This isn't some nervous subdivision with stop signs planted at each corner to calm the homeowners. It's a busy rural crossroads just beyond the 540 Outer Loop, with lots of drivers in a hurry to be somewhere else.

They don't want to stop their fast cars or to pause their important telephone conversations. They want to go.

Sometimes they make their own law. They bluff. They bully.

He who hesitates is last.

Having "witnessed my fair share of near-misses," Francis is looking for clarity.

"I would hate for something to happen and it turns out I was in the wrong," Francis said by e-mail. "Even though I was following the unspoken understanding of those of us who travel it often."

Lacy is the guy in charge of worrying about this stuff for the state Department of Transportation. He has studies showing that crash rates often drop after four-way stops are added at an intersection of two roads with roughly equal car counts -- but not enough volume, yet, to qualify for traffic signals.

You're breaking the law when you do not yield to the driver on your right, Lacy says, if both cars got there at the same moment. But the practical etiquette on the road can be more complicated than the law sounds.

"It helps to use your turn signal," Lacy said. "If I'm approaching that four-way stop and I'm turning right, I'm not going to conflict with the driver to my right.

"You have to yield to the vehicle that has the right of way. That doesn't mean you can't have more than one vehicle in the intersection at the same time."

Still, when you stop at Honeycutt and Durant, you'd better look both ways -- and watch out for yourself.

"There are a lot of drivers out there that habitually feel like they have a greater urgency than everybody else," Lacy said. "And they take advantage of folks who follow the law."

Comment on DOT plan

What do you think about our transportation improvement priorities?

The state DOT is updating its road, transit and other investment plans for the next seven years. You can read the draft 2009-2015 State Transportation Improvement Program and post your comments online at www.ncdot.org/ planning/development/TIP/TIP/.

Or you can express your views at a public meeting before the final plan is adopted this spring. Each session runs from 2 to 4 p.m.:

* DIVISION 4 (JOHNSTON, EDGECOMBE, HALIFAX, NASH, WAYNE AND WILSON COUNTIES). Feb. 12 in City Hall Council Chambers, Third Floor, One Government Plaza, 331 S. Franklin St., Rocky Mount.

* DIVISION 7 (ORANGE, ALAMANCE, CASWELL, GUILFORD AND ROCKINGHAM COUNTIES). Feb. 20 at Southern Human Services Campus, Robert and Pearl Seymour Center, 2551 Homestead Road, Chapel Hill.

* DIVISION 5 (DURHAM, WAKE, FRANKLIN, GRANVILLE, PERSON, VANCE AND WARREN COUNTIES). Feb. 21 in City Hall Council Chambers, 101 City Hall Plaza, Durham.

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.