Meeting Oncoming Traffic on a Narrow Road

This is where positioning becomes genuinely high-stakes — and it's especially relevant here, where a huge proportion of Class D and E rural roads are single-track or barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass without one slowing or pulling aside.

(A note on status: Cap 403 doesn't spell out narrow-road passing procedure in explicit detail. What follows is sound defensive practice — and judgment always takes priority over any specific step.)

The basic principle: keep as far left as the road surface safely allows, maximising your margin from the oncoming vehicle. It's a direct extension of "keep left" — on a narrow road it matters more, not less.

When there isn't room for both:

• Whoever reaches a wider section or natural passing point first should stop or slow there and let the other through — rather than both advancing toward a genuinely too-narrow point and forcing a last-second negotiation.
• If an obstacle is on your side — a pothole, debris, a broken-down vehicle, standing water — you give way, regardless of who arrived first. Your path is the compromised one.

The three-way negotiation: on rural roads shared with matatus and boda bodas, the width available shrinks further whenever a pedestrian, cyclist, or livestock is also present. Treat a narrow-road meeting as a negotiation between three parties — you, the oncoming vehicle, and whatever non-motorised traffic occupies the shoulder — not a simple two-vehicle pass. The mixed-use default from the road-classification lesson is never more literal than here.