No problem! This is a topic which I’ve been strangely fascinated for years about, although we’ll never know if it actually answers the case that OP described.

This kinda all started when I was learning how to drive, and kept seeing people online talking about how “in California, no one has the right of way, but can only yield it”. This was puzzling to me as a student driver, because obviously I have the right to the street if I’m in it… right?

It all made sense when I finally determined for myself that “right-of-way” meant the property that the state/county/city owns, meaning that all the drivers are temporary guests upon the right-of-way, and thus have to yield it to each other in an orderly fashion, like passing around a can of Axe body spray in the high school locker rooms.

Indeed, driving in California doesn’t really have any absolute rights whatsoever, since no situation affords anyone an absolute ability to do something. A green light doesn’t mean blindly drive into an intersection, since the Anti-Gridlock Act of 1987 prohibits causing actual gridlock, and pedestrians can still cross if entered lawfully, among other things. Even an ambulance or fire-truck cannot blindly drive waywardly into the street, expecting everyone to get out of the way. There are enough rules that it’s easier to just say no rights really exist, and everyone just has to calmly and fairly cooperate so that everyone makes it home alive.

Suffice it to say, there are zero absolutes. And that’s probably for the best, since if there were absolutes, so-called self-driving cars would probably be mowing down pedestrians, cyclists, and other motorists with full force of law.