5.1 Keep Left, Meeting and Being Overtaken

Keep left, meeting and being overtaken

The Guyana Police Force (GPF) learner package treats the Guyana Road Traffic Code as the Highway Code / Guyana Road Safety Code source for how traffic actually moves. This OpenExamPrep chapter is independent study of that published Rule of the Road. It is not a Police booklet, not a claim of official approval, and not a substitute for the April 2025 Code PDF you received in the three-book package.

Quick Answer: Rule 22 says the Rule of the Road in this country is left-hand traffic. All vehicles keep to the left or near side. When you meet oncoming traffic, keep well left. When you are being overtaken, keep left. Do not cruise the middle of the road except when you may turn right. Typical Guyana motor cars, hire cars, and minibuses are right-hand drive: the steering wheel is on the off side (right).

What Rule 22 actually states

The Code prints Rule 22 as a short list. Memorise the verbs; they are the ones a multiple-choice item will swap.

1. All vehicles must keep to the left or near side of the road.
2. If you are driving or riding, when meeting another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, you must keep well to the left or near side.
3. When being overtaken, you must keep to the left on the road.
4. When overtaking another vehicle, you must do so on its right or off side (section 5.2).
5. You should not, except when you may turn right, drive along the middle of the road.

The first three points are this section. Overtaking on the right, cutting in, and white-line limits belong in 5.2. Moving off and hold-ups belong in 5.3. Do not collapse them into one slogan such as "always left." Meeting requires well left. Being overtaken requires staying left, not sliding toward the passer. Turning right is the named exception to occupying the middle.

Near side and off side on a Guyana road

Near side is the left. On a two-way road it is the kerb, drain, verge, or parking edge on your left. Off side is the right. On a two-way road it is the side toward the centre line and toward oncoming traffic.

That vocabulary is older British traffic English, and the Code still uses it. If you learned to drive in a right-hand-traffic country (United States, mainland Europe, much of Latin America), your default is inverted. Reset it before you sit the GPF electronic paper. "Keep right" is the wrong default in Georgetown, on the East Bank, on the East Coast, at Timehri, at Bartica, and on the Soesdyke–Linden Highway.

Typical right-hand-drive vehicles

Most Guyana motor cars, hire cars, minibuses, goods vehicles, and many motorcycles in daily use are set up for left-hand traffic. The steering wheel sits on the right. The driver sits on the off side. The left-hand doors are the near-side doors: they open toward the kerb when the vehicle is parked correctly on the left.

That layout is not a decoration. Sitting on the right puts the driver closer to the centre of a two-way road, which is the sight line you need when you judge an oncoming vehicle, a gap, or an overtaking opportunity. Sitting on the left, as in a left-hand-drive import that has not been converted, puts the driver on the kerb side and farther from the centre. The Code still requires that vehicle to keep left. The Rule of the Road does not flip because the steering wheel is on the "wrong" side for Guyana. Learners should still expect the exam's default picture to be a right-hand-drive car keeping left.

Motorcycles, pedal cycles, animal-drawn vehicles, and columns on the march are still traffic. Rule 22 says all vehicles. A minibus on Church Street and a pedal cycle on a dam road share the same keep-left duty.

Meeting: keep well left

Meeting means two vehicles travelling toward each other. The classic picture is a two-way road with no barrier: you on the left half, the other driver on their left half, which is your right as you look ahead.

Rule 22 does not say "stay somewhere on your half." It says keep well to the left or near side. The extra word is there because a centre-hugging meeting is how wing mirrors, bull bars, and loads clip each other. On a narrow East Coast stretch, a village street, or a road with standing water on the left, the temptation is to take the crown. The Code's answer is still well left, then slow if you cannot pass safely. The Code, on the same Rule 22 page, also tells you not to drive at a speed from which you cannot pull up within the distance you can see to be clear, and to go much more slowly if the road is wet or slippery. Meeting is often the moment those speed lines matter.

Do not "share the middle" as a courtesy. Do not swing right to show the other driver your face. Do not occupy their half because your off-side wheels prefer the smoother asphalt. If the carriageway is too narrow for two vehicles to meet, stop on your left and wait; do not invent a keep-right workaround.

Named Guyana crossings such as the Demerara Harbour Bridge and the Canje Bridge still use left-hand traffic. The Code separately requires you to drive carefully and within the prescribed limit on those bridges. Meeting on a bridge is also an overtaking-prohibition location in section 5.2. The keep-left rule does not pause because the surface is a bridge deck.

Being overtaken: stay left

When another vehicle is passing you, Rule 22(c) requires you to keep to the left on the road. The overtaking vehicle is using your off side (section 5.2). If you drift right, you close the only legal passing space and you can force the passer into oncoming traffic.

Related Code lines sit in the overtaking cluster and you will meet them again in 5.2, but they already affect the vehicle being passed:

• If you are ready to be overtaken, give the appropriate signal (the hand-signal chapter covers the "ready to be overtaken" arm movement).
• Do not increase your speed when being overtaken.
• A courteous driver slows to help the other driver overtake safely.

Keeping left is not the same as pulling onto a sidewalk, a drain, or a pedestrian crossing. It means holding your near-side running position, steady, while the passer uses the off side. Accelerating "to get it over with" is the opposite of the Code's courtesy line. Brake-checking the passer is not keep-left driving; it is a collision method.

Do not live in the middle

Rule 22(e) closes the keep-left cluster: you should not, except when you may turn right, drive along the middle of the road. The middle is for a committed right turn, not for a sightseeing cruise, not for avoiding puddles as a habit, and not for "claiming" a minibus lane. If you are not turning right, get back to the near side.

A right-turn exception is not a licence to sit on the centre line for a kilometre "because I might turn." Signal, position, and turn when the turn is actually to be made. Junction details (STOP, SLOW, look right, left, right again) are Chapter 6. Here you only need the Rule 22 limit: middle of the road is not the default lane.

Keep-left map for the electronic paper

On a GPF item that names near side, the answer is left. On an item that names off side, the answer is right. On an item that names meeting, look for well left. On an item that names a minibus or hire car, picture the driver on the right, still keeping left.

Emergency sirens (Fire Brigade, Ambulance, Police) are a later cluster: pull to the left and STOP, and at night dim lights. That instruction only works because the Rule of the Road already put you on the left. It is not a third running position.

Study Rule 22 from the Road Traffic Code. Independent OpenExamPrep teaching of keep-left topics is extra explanation for learners. It does not rewrite the Code and it does not replace the GPF package.