The issue is that you can get in a situation with a car on each road. One of the drivers then has to signal the car on his left that he gives up his right of way. This is the same across the EU.

That happens all the time. But the point is that it's no worse because of the stop signs. Even without 4 stop signs you can have 4 cars stopped. This isn't a "bad" situation or a deadlock, this is a very safe situation and just means cars will have to crawl out in the crossing while making eye contact and taking some kind of turn driving. Now, if this happens regularly then the junction is much too trafficed for being a planar 4 way - with or without stops. Should be a roundabout in this case. But 4 stopsigns does not make an automatic deadlock. You don't need a rule to decide who goes first in that situation.

The same can be seen in any intersection with red lights, as soon as the red lights don't work. You just crawl into the intersection, trying to take turns. It works.

The thing is, in the Netherlands, you could not use a stop sign for that, because a stop sign does not mean "stop and then crawl out into the intersection while maintaining eye contact with other drivers", it means "stop and give way to the road with the higher priority". A proper traffic code should always provide a consistent way to approach any given sign.

If there's no working traffic lights and no stop signs, a different set of rules come into play.

> The thing is, in the Netherlands, you could not use a stop sign for that, because a stop sign does not mean "stop and then crawl out into the intersection while maintaining eye contact with other drivers", it means "stop and give way to the road with the higher priority". A proper traffic code should always provide a consistent way to approach any given sign.

The normal solution (used e.g. in Sweden) is to simply add a supplemental sign saying "multi-way stop" under the stop sign. https://d3h4jqp4au0mzy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/201...

I was taught that the shape of the stop sign is octagon (and yield triangle) because you can recognize the shape from behind. The main road doesn't need to have the diamond priority sign. You know you have priority if the you see the octagon or triangular shape on adjoining roads.

Not sure I understand what you are saying here...

Imagine driving towards an intersection. There is no sign telling you if you have priority or not. There is a red car coming from the right. Then you notice that the red car has a stop sign in front of him (you recognize the shape). You infer that you are on the main road and you can ignore the right-hand rule.

Sorry, I understood what you meant, just not what the relevance was. What you are saying applies, and applies universally (regardless of whether there also exists multi-way-stops).

That there is no need for supplemental signs I guess.

Either you have a regular stop intersection, in which case there are octagonal stop signs on the roads that do not have priority. No supplemental signs needed. A driver stopping at the stop sign knows that when the intersection is clear he can drive. If it's a 4 way and he's turning left, he may have to yield to a driver on the opposite road, depending on the local laws (In a right hand yield priority the car turning left yields to the car in the opposite road).

Or it's a multi-way-stop (which is rare) in which case all roads have the supplemental sign. None of the roads have priority and all drivers can do to resolve deadlocks is be careful. All the supplemental sign does is inform drivers that OTHER drivers will also stop. It just removes the ambiguity we talked about above - where a driver at a stop sign might otherwise think he can't drive until the intersection is completely clear.

A stop sign means stop and give way to the cars on the main road, or if the other road has same priority, to the cars on your right. If there are no cars, you are free to enter the junction. A road with a yield sign and a road with a stop sign are of the same priority and right-hand rule applies. Unless you are in Croatia where people universally refuse to accept this simple rule and consider the stop sign as having lower priority "because that car has to stop".