Not giving another driver, pedestrian, cyclist, or vehicle the legal priority to go first.

"Right of way" means who must be allowed to move through an intersection, merge, turn, enter a road, or cross a street before someone else. "Failure to yield" happens when a person who is required to wait does not wait. That can include pulling out from a side road into traffic, turning left across oncoming vehicles, ignoring a yield sign, cutting off a pedestrian in a crosswalk, or entering a lane when it is not clear. It does not always mean the other person had no duty at all, but it usually means one driver broke a traffic rule meant to prevent a crash.

Practically, this matters because right-of-way violations often happen fast and leave little room to avoid impact, especially on two-lane roads with heavy truck traffic and no shoulders, such as stretches of US-61 in the Delta. A citation for failing to yield can support a claim that a driver was negligent, though the ticket alone does not decide the whole case.

In Mississippi, right-of-way duties appear in several traffic statutes, including Mississippi Code Annotated section 63-3-805 on vehicles entering stop or yield intersections and section 63-3-1105 on turning left. In an injury claim, insurers may use these rules to argue fault. Mississippi's pure comparative negligence rule, under Miss. Code Ann. section 11-7-15, can reduce damages if both sides share blame.