Traffic terminology

Highway Engineering

What is the difference between passing and overtaking?

Passing:
Passing is when you are driving a vehicle in a lane
of road with another vehicle in other lane and you speed up car
to pass that vehicle.

Passing of vehicle

Overtaking:
Overtaking is when you are driving a vehicle in
a lane of road with a vehicle in front of you in the same lane
and you speed up car and change lane and come into the same
lane before that vehicle.

Overtaking of vehicle

What is the difference between merging and diverging?

Merging:
Merging is either when there are two lanes and one is ending. In this case you will
want to look for a gap in the traffic, match your speed and move over or it can be when you are
getting on the highway for example, or from a side road and
your lane is entering the road traffic and you will need to move
over into traffic, which is merging.
There are 2 different give way rules for merging.

Merging on roads that have lane markings

1. On roads where there are lanes marked on the road:
if
your lane comes to an end, you must give way to traffic
already in the lane you are moving to. In this example,
Vehicle A (white) must give way to Vehicle B (yellow).

Merging on the road when lanes

are marked on the road

Traffic terminology

Highway Engineering

2. On roads where there are no lanes marked on the

road:
when lines of traffic merge, you must give way to any
vehicle that is ahead of you. In this example, Vehicle B
(yellow) must give way to Vehicle A (white).

Merging on roads that don't have

lane markings

Diverging:
It is a traffic operation when the vehicles moving in one direction is separated into
different streams according to their destinations.