Road sign R-5: Priority for oncoming traffic

What it means

«Prohibición de entrada en un paso estrecho mientras no sea posible atravesarlo sin obligar a los vehículos que circulen en sentido contrario a detenerse.» RD 465/2025, Annex I of the RGC (BOE-A-2025-12199), Spanish original.

The sign bars you from entering a narrow passage while you cannot cross it without forcing oncoming vehicles to stop. At that passage, oncoming traffic has priority over you.

Where you meet it

It appears before a narrow passage, for example a one-lane bridge, on the side where you lose priority. The sign decides priority at the narrow passage, not the order of arrival.

What you must do

Wait until you can cross the passage without forcing oncoming traffic to stop. If you entered first from the end that the signing leaves without priority, you must reverse even though you arrived first (RGC art. 61.2).

Details that count

A narrowing caused by works has its own rule. Once a queue has formed, the order is set by whoever arrived first: position yourself behind, close to the edge, and follow the vehicle ahead without overtaking it (RGC art. 60.2 and 60.4). And if staff regulate the passage, their instructions replace the ordinary right-of-way rule for the narrow stretch, whoever arrived first (RGC art. 60.5). R-5 belongs to the priority signs, code R, and its official description speaks of a «prohibition» of entry.

What it is confused with

It is confused with R-6, its opposite twin: R-5 takes priority from you and R-6 gives it to you at the same kind of narrow passage. With no signs, on a level narrowing order of arrival rules; with these signs the sign rules.

Related signs

• R-6: Priority over oncoming traffic
• R-4: End of priority
• R-1: Give way

Studied in topic 27: Priority and roundabouts.

Source: RGC arts. 60.2, 60.4, 60.5, 61.2; RGC Annex I, sign R-5 (RD 465/2025).