6.1 STOP, SLOW and YIELD
Key Takeaways
- A SLOW sign means slow down and be ready to stop if necessary; it is not a licence to keep speed because the junction looks empty.
- A STOP sign means you must stop at the major road ahead even if there is no traffic on it.
- YIELD, and the conventional British Give Way plate used in Guyana, require you to give way to priority traffic and to stop when that traffic is there or when you cannot be sure.
- After a STOP halt, do not cross or turn into the main road unless there is ample room; stopping does not give you later rights to inconvenience main-road users who have the right of way.
- The words SLOW, STOP, or YIELD may appear on the road in 4-foot letters at approaches to junctions, corners, and similar places.
STOP, SLOW and YIELD at Guyana junctions
Junctions are where two streams share one patch of road. The Guyana Road Traffic Code groups the first duties under the heading Road Junctions as rules 40 to 45. This independent OpenExamPrep study of those rules, of the painted words in the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Regulations, and of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) Learner/Driver Theoretical Programme is study material for the electronic theory sitting. It is not a GPF booklet and it does not claim official approval, partnership, or exact equivalence with the Traffic Headquarters package at Eve Leary.
Quick Answer: A SLOW sign means slow down and be ready to stop if necessary. A STOP sign means you MUST STOP at the major road ahead even if there is no traffic on it. YIELD (and the conventional British Give Way plate used in Guyana) means you must give way — halt if you need to. After you have stopped, you still have no extra right to inconvenience main-road users who have the right of way.
Why the Code splits SLOW from STOP
Rule 40 and rule 41 sit next to each other so candidates stop treating them as the same plate. At a junction with a SLOW sign, you slow down and be ready to stop if necessary. The duty is to arrive under control, with enough space and time to halt if a vehicle, a pedal cycle, a pedestrian, or an animal appears. You do not have authority to keep open-road speed because you think you can see the East Coast from the side street. Rain, a parked minibus, a blind corner (rule 26 already told you to slow before those), or a mango tree can hide the thing you need to stop for.
At a STOP sign, rule 41 is absolute in wording: you MUST STOP at the major road ahead even if there is no traffic on it. An empty East Coast road at 06:00 is still a STOP. A quiet country junction outside New Amsterdam is still a STOP. A Sunday morning side street in Georgetown is still a STOP. Rolling the last metre because you “already looked” is not what the Code says. The halt is the duty. The look taught in section 6.2 comes with that halt, not instead of it.
SLOW is readiness. STOP is a completed halt. If you only remember one contrast for the sitting, remember that pair in the Code’s own verbs.
YIELD as a road word — and Give Way as a plate
The Theoretical Programme quotes regulation 179(3): the words SLOW, STOP, or YIELD may be used on the road surface at the approach to road junctions, corners, and similar places where drivers are liable not to see other warning signs. The letters are 4 feet in depth and the strokes are not less than 4 nor more than 5 inches wide. Those painted words are not decoration for a photographer. If the plate is dirty, bent, stolen, or hidden by foliage, the word on the asphalt is still an instruction.
YIELD is the give-way word. The April 2025 Road Traffic Code also lists conventional British signs used in Guyana, including the inverted-triangle Give Way plate and the octagonal STOP. The international illustrated set in the same Code names Stop at intersection as sign 1 and Priority road ahead as sign 4. Do not invent a third colour scheme or an extra plate the Guyana booklet does not print. If you see YIELD on the road or Give Way on a plate, you must give way to the traffic that has priority — usually the major road under rule 43. If that traffic is there, you stop. If it is not there, YIELD does not copy rule 41’s “stop anyway even if empty” command. That command belongs to STOP.
A painted YIELD plus a Give Way triangle is one instruction, not two different laws. A SLOW word plus a warning triangle for junction geometry is still SLOW, not a secret STOP. Read the word and the plate together; do not invent a ranking the Code does not write.
After the halt — rule 44
Rule 44 is the paragraph candidates skip. Having stopped in response to a STOP sign, do not cross or turn into the main road unless there is ample room to do so. Obedience to a STOP sign does not give you subsequently any rights to move so as to inconvenience the users of the main road who have the RIGHT OF WAY.
Wheels stopped, then a new decision. A gap that fits a motorcycle may not fit a hire car. A gap that fits you in dry weather on the East Bank may not fit you on a wet Demerara evening. Pulling out and forcing a Linden-bound car to brake or swerve is exactly the inconvenience rule 44 forbids. You have not “used up” the STOP. You have only completed the first half of the manoeuvre. The main road still owns the through movement.
How the three instructions compare
| Instruction | Code or regulation hook | What you must do | What you must not do |
|---|---|---|---|
| SLOW (plate or 4 ft road word) | Rule 40; reg. 179(3) | Slow down; be ready to stop if necessary | Treat it as a tap on the brake while you keep talking |
| STOP (octagon, Stop at intersection, or 4 ft STOP) | Rule 41; rule 44 | Halt at the major road even if it looks empty; then move only with ample room | Roll through because the road “looks clear”; claim right of way after stopping |
| YIELD / Give Way | Reg. 179(3); British Give Way plate; rule 43 | Give way to priority traffic; stop if that traffic is there or if you cannot be sure | Treat YIELD as a licence to enter a busy major road without a gap |
Approach drill that matches the signs
- Read early. Junction words are 4 feet high because you are meant to see them while you still have braking distance. A SLOW or STOP plate is the same idea as slowing before a blind corner, with a legal label.
- Match the plate to the action. SLOW → reduce speed and prepare the halt. STOP → halt. YIELD → prepare to halt and give way.
- Stop at the right place. Rule 41 says stop at the major road ahead. That is the mouth of the junction, where you can see along the major road — not twenty metres back where a parked lorry blocks the view, and not after your bonnet is already in the path of East Bank traffic.
- Then apply rule 44. The halt is not a ticket to go. Ample room first.
- Watch for a second cue. Lights, a police rank, or a School Safety Patrol can add a further stop. Signs do not cancel a constable; a constable can hold you after you have already obeyed STOP.
Typical Guyana mistakes
The empty-road roll is the classic STOP error: the driver treats rule 41 as if it were rule 40. The opposite error is also real: treating every SLOW as a full halt in the travel lane when nothing requires a stop and a following vehicle is closing up. Rule 40 says ready to stop if necessary, not “park on the word SLOW.”
A third error is reading YIELD as “I yield only to private cars, not to minibuses or pedal cycles.” Rule 43’s major-road duty is about traffic, not about vehicle class. A fourth is stopping, then creeping out because a passenger waves — that belongs with rule 45 in section 6.2.
Memorise the Code’s own verbs: slow down and be ready to stop if necessary; MUST STOP even if there is no traffic; ample room; RIGHT OF WAY stays with the main road. The electronic sitting can ask any of those phrases. This chapter teaches those published topics; it does not replace the Road Traffic Code PDF in the three-book package.
Under Guyana Road Traffic Code rule 40, what must you do when you approach a junction with a SLOW sign?
Under Code rule 41, what does a STOP sign require at the major road ahead?
After you have stopped in response to a STOP sign, what does Code rule 44 say about entering the main road?