You do know there are people in those vehicles right? The way you write that, you make it sound like the vehicles are just driving around on their own.
The vehicles have no priority at all, the people in them do.
Does that bother you that someone wrapped in a vehicle has priority over someone not wrapped?
It's like that always - small boats have to give way to large ones for example.
It's like that always - small boats have to give way to large ones for example.
Boats traveling through fluid, controlled by a relatively tiny prop, are in no way comparable to road-going vehicles that enjoy the static friction of rubber on asphalt.
Additionally, all vehicles on the road are held to (virtually) the same legal standards, regardless of size. If anything, laws are more restrictive the larger the vehicle.
Also, this is false:
The vehicles have no priority at all, the people in them do.
There are many parts of the country where it would be illegal to cross a road on foot (jaywalking), but entirely legal to do so within a vehicle.
I get the feeling that you have little to no experience on the water outside of Jaws and pontoon party boats. Size only matters in context with the area one operates in. Malaca Straits? Bet your ass the big boys have priority... but that is because of traffic and pirates. Coastal Downeast Maine? If you have the elephantiasis feel free to cut off the lobstermen in their tiny boats; i will watch you get keel hauled from a safe distance.
It is always context as well as proportion. Neither air nor water work as reference points for driving, as the scale in both those worlds is analogous to the variance in insect size [ant to dragonfly] or water creature [diatom to jelly fish] while the road is much more like the difference in dog breeds. On top of that, the land is our natural habitat, as opposed to the hydro- or atmosphere, and the use of that space must take into account that society is based on people and not profits or production. Yes, like mobility, the are absolutely important, but only in how they advance culture and society. A heart is a meat pump if there is no brain to feed oxygen.
There are more people without vehicle access than with. De-personalizing vehicles would be a good thing.
And just because i'm on a rant: how many people die from terrorist attacks per annum v. car accidents? If the government[s] actually cared about people, vehicular death would be confronted with the same rigor and rhetoric that extremist islam is. Kind of sad that rich south africans and faceless cororations are the only ones who seem to be doing anything about it.
On roads, vehicles absolutely have a priority over people. This is so obvious, I'm honestly not sure why I had to state the previous sentence.