Most collision reports in a fleet’s year involve a junction - and most junction rules in the Highway Code (170 to 183) are ones professional drivers half-know. The half that gets forgotten is usually the half that changed in 2022, or the half that behaves differently in an 18-tonner.
Take extra care at junctions - and inside that, the hierarchy-era duties: give way to pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross a road into which or from which you are turning. If they have started to cross, they have priority. A van turning left into a side road now owes priority to the pedestrian on that side road’s corner - the single most-missed rule change for urban delivery driving. The same rule tells you to remain behind cyclists and motorcyclists at junctions even when they wait close to the kerb, to watch for long vehicles using the whole width to turn, and never to trust the indicator of the car approaching from the right until it actually turns.
Rule 171: you MUST stop behind the line at a Stop sign with a solid white line - not roll, stop - and wait for a safe gap. Rule 172: you MUST give way to traffic on the main road when emerging across broken white lines. Both carry RTA 1988 s36 behind them; these are offences, not etiquette.
When crossing a dual carriageway or turning right onto one, first assess whether the central reservation is deep enough to protect the FULL LENGTH of your vehicle. If it is, treat each carriageway as a separate road and wait in the middle. If it is too shallow, wait until you can cross both in one go. For a tractor unit and trailer this is the whole calculation: a reservation that shelters a car leaves an artic’s tail sitting in live traffic. The rule assumes you know your vehicle’s length; the driver’s walkaround should include knowing that number.
Criss-cross yellow lines mean you MUST NOT enter the box until your exit is clear. One exception: you may enter and wait when turning right, stopped only by oncoming traffic or other right-turners. At signalled roundabouts the rule tightens: MUST NOT enter unless you can cross completely without stopping. Long vehicles have a special relationship with this rule - the driver who “had a gap when I started” discovers that a 13.6m trailer converts a rolling queue into a stationary box-blocker. Plan the exit before the entry.
Rule 175: MUST stop behind the Stop line unless the light is green; amber means go on only if you have already crossed the line or stopping might cause a collision. Rule 176: MUST NOT cross on red - and when lights fail, treat the junction as unmarked and proceed with great care. For heavy vehicles the amber judgment is freighted - literally: the loaded 44-tonner that “couldn’t stop” at amber makes its case to a court, not to physics.
Rules 170 to 176 were not written for 12-metre vehicles, and city junctions are where the mismatch bites daily. The left turn across a cycle lane with the Rule 170 pedestrian on the corner, the box junction half a vehicle shorter than your outfit, the traffic light phased for cars - none of these are excuses the law accepts, but all of them are situations route planning can defuse. Fleets that map their problem junctions - the depot exit onto the dual carriageway, the delivery street with the camera-enforced box - and brief them specifically have measurably fewer junction incidents than fleets that rely on drivers improvising. The rules are universal; the local application deserves the same attention as the rules themselves. And the enforcement angle has teeth: box-junction contraventions and stop-line offences are camera-enforced in many cities, with the PCN landing on the registered keeper - which for a fleet means an administrative stream of notices to pay or transfer, and a driver-conversation stream behind it.