CH. XXII THE RULE OF THE ROAD 499 



that there is no recognised standard by which drivers 

 expect to be judged. 



Besides the rules of the road, the courtesies of 

 the road should be strictly observed. Every vehicle 

 is entitled to one-half of the road, but it is usual for 

 a light carriage to yield to a heavily loaded business 

 wagon, since that cannot so readily leave the best 

 part of the road, and some English legal decisions 

 recognise this courtesy as obligatory. A vehicle 

 going up a hill should to some extent yield to one 

 coming down, especially at a crossing, inasmuch as 

 it is more difficult to pull up quickly on a descent 

 than on an ascent. 



Many coaching men seem to have an idea that for 

 some mysterious reason every vehicle should give 

 way to a coach, and are not sparing in unfavorable 

 comments on those who do not accord them an 

 excessive right of way ; but there are no just 

 grounds for such pretensions on the part of a 

 person driving a private coach. The feeling is, 

 probably, traditional, arising from the fact that 

 the mail-coaches and those public-coaches which car- 

 ried a mail, had by law what might be called an 

 almost violent right of way over all traffic. How 

 strongly this was felt is shown by many anec- 

 dotes, among them one told by Stanley Harris 

 on p. 72 of The Coaching Age, and accompanied 

 by a spirited illustration by Sturgess, in which, in 

 the words of a passenger on the mail, ' The sol- 

 ' diers were marching down the military road which 



