Driveway exits

What is a driveway exit (uitrit)?

A driveway exit is where you drive from a property next to the road onto the road. Think of the driveway of a house, a garage, a car park or a petrol station. It is not a normal side road, but the entrance to such a property.

What is the difference between a driveway entrance and a driveway exit? It is often the same place. Driving onto the property, you use an entrance (inrit). Driving off it, you use an exit (uitrit). For priority, what counts is what you are doing at that moment.

When is something a driveway exit? When other road users can clearly see that it is one. So you look at the whole picture: what the connection looks like and where it leads.

Exit construction: how to recognise a driveway exit

An exit construction (uitritconstructie) is the way a driveway exit is built. The pavement or cycle path simply continues. You drive across it onto the road. If you see that, you know: this is a driveway exit.

How to recognise a driveway exit:

• The pavement or cycle path continues, often in the same paving and colour.
• You drive over a low or sloping kerb onto the road. These sloping kerb stones are called inritbanden.
• Behind the connection there is clearly a property, such as a house, garage or car park.

You do not need to see everything at once. A driveway exit does not always have a low kerb. And a “keep exit clear” sign on a gate does not make a connection a driveway exit.

Is a speed bump a driveway exit?

No, not by itself. A speed bump or a difference in height does not turn a side road into a driveway exit. Is the connection built like a normal side road? Then the normal priority rules apply.

Is a dead-end street a driveway exit?

Not by itself either. A dead-end street is usually just a road. Do you leave it across a continuous pavement, so over an exit construction? Then you treat the connection as a driveway exit.

Driveway exits and priority: who goes first?

When you leave a driveway exit, you let all other traffic go first. Driving onto the road from an exit is a special manoeuvre (article 54 RVV). So it does not matter whether someone comes from the left or from the right.

You let these go first:

• cars, motorcycles and lorries on the road, from the left and from the right;
• cyclists and moped riders on the cycle path;
• pedestrians on the pavement you cross.

Turning from the road into a driveway? That is also a special manoeuvre. Then you also let the other traffic go first. More about these manoeuvres under special manoeuvres.

Do you have to give way to pedestrians when leaving a driveway?

Yes. When you come out of a driveway exit, pedestrians on the pavement go first. Children playing or someone with a walker too. So look carefully left and right before you cross the pavement.

Leaving an erf

When you leave an erf (home zone), the same applies: you let the other traffic go first. You recognise an erf by sign G5 (erf).

Where the erf ends, there is often sign G6 (end of erf): the same sign with a red stripe through it. When you drive onto the normal road there, you also let all other traffic go first.

Entering and leaving at the same time: who goes first?

Does one car want to go in and the other out, and is the entrance narrow? Agree on it together and give each other room. It often helps to give the car that wants to come out room first. Whoever comes out of the exit must still always let the traffic on the road go first.

By the way, you may not park in front of a driveway exit. More about that under the parking rules.

The difference between a driveway exit and an equal junction

A driveway exit can look like a side road. Yet different rules apply. At an equal junction, traffic from the right goes first. At a driveway exit, you let everyone go first.

Picture	Situation	Who goes first?	Why?
	Leaving a driveway exit	All other traffic, pedestrians too	It is a special manoeuvre.
	Equal junction	Drivers from the right. The rules for turning and for trams also apply.	There are no signs or shark’s teeth, and it is not a driveway exit.
	From an unpaved road onto a paved road	All drivers on the paved road	Separate rules apply to pedestrians.

More about these situations under equal junction and unpaved road.