Does anyone else drive all around the roundabout?

[DanHumphreyIsA]

Instead of waiting in a long queue for the left/straight ahead exit?

Most roundabouts I use daily have heavier traffic in the left hand lane, (going to centre, retail parks, general main roads etc) and the right one normally has 2 or 3 cars waiting in comparison.

I generally just go into the right hand lane, then go all the way around and back to the exit I need, as its quicker.
Especially when it is a traffic light controlled one, the lights always let 3 cars through and change back.

A few people with me have thought it was strange, so it got me thinking if it was a driving 'taboo' (or unreasonable...)
Are you supposed to stick to the lane you need?

ChickenVindaloo2

Life is so much easier the day you quit giving fucks about what other people say/do/think and just do you what suits you.

Unfortunately it is this attitude that turns people into the arsehole that is lozzylizzy's husband who will eventually be the cause of a major incident.

It's not that everyone else is stupid, but just they have common decency so don't jump the que. All those que jumpers are a significant reason why everyone else is having to que and why roundabouts get grid locked.

So you are not actually massively queue jumping, just bypassing the left hand turn queue by going right and round. I can see your moral justification.

I don't care WHAT you do on a roundabout as long as you SIGNAL to show which exit you are going to use by using your left hand indicator before you arrive at said exit.

I am sick and fed up of sitting waiting to enter a roundabout (single carriageway access road, so no lanes for different directions) trying to guess from the trajectories of cars coming round at speed whether they are exiting at the turning I am on, or whizzing round across my nose.

And then getting beeped at because I haven't been able to tell and so haven't thrown myself onto the roundabout in front of a car which wasn't signalling but has turned off at the very last moment.

I do this all the time.

It's not selfish at all.

If 30 cars are in left lane to turn left, and there is only 2/3 cars to take a different exit, me going around the roundabout a full turn then off my original exit is not at all selfish. It's just easier.

I'm not cutting anyone up/delaying anyone else. I'm just getting where I need to be 5 minutes faster.

I am a carer and my area has roundabouts every 5 minutes and it's a nightmare working between 4-7 due to traffic. I take all quiet routes or country roads when I can but sometimes in the town it's just so busy.

It's an interesting quirk of roundabout design.

If you have 2 lanes approaching a roundabout:

is it better to have the Left hand lane for left turn only and the right hand lane for straight on / right turn?

or

To have the Left hand lane for left and straight on, and the right hand lane for right turn only?

I suspect a lot of that depends on the flow of traffic off the lanes.

I bet someone somewhere has a computer model of that.

It exists

trlsoftware.co.uk/products/junction_signal_design/arcady

I wonder if they factor in driver behaviour as well

@cantkeepawayforever oh yes I always signal, even if I'm turning left in a 'left only' lane, as it's not always clear to the cars waiting to go.

I don't care WHAT you do on a roundabout as long as you SIGNAL to show which exit you are going to use by using your left hand indicator before you arrive at said exit.

This forever. I have wasted probably months of my lifetime waiting for people at roundabouts who actually turn off at/before my exit.

I'm doing it in my big fuck off Range Rover with my private number plate, so most MN will already think I'm a twat anyway.

Twat in needless twat mobile, kitted up with twat plates acts like a colossal twat. Now there's a shocker!

I do it sometimes and know I am being a twat when I am doing it but its legal so ok. Although once I saw police doing random checks on cars (breaks, lights etc.) and were pulling people off the roundabout that were doing it. I suspect some coppers partner got annoyed one morning and this was the result. They only ever turned up once in the months I had to use that roundabout.

@orlantina I was just thinking that, I reckon it would need to be based on where each exit leads to. But I don't think they'd ever get it right!
My LA recently spent 1 million on converting a normal roundabout to a traffic controlled one, only to then switch the traffic lights off a couple of weeks later as they caused massive disruptions when in use. It turned out we were fine using without any help!

Another roundabout I do this on is kind of opposite, the L/H lane goes left, straight and right. The R/H lane is right only.

The majority of people go straight on this one (to city centre), but theres a traffic light just before the straight exit, which causes cars to block the left exit. So I go right all the way around to go left. I do wonder how the exits seemed like a good design at the time

I've been driving years and it only occurred to me recently to do this. Cheeky but inspired!

Yes!

I do this but not to go straight on, I actually need the first left (very rarely taken by anyone, 99.999% of drivers are going straight on. So I bypass the huge left hand lane queue, go all the way round and then exit first left after where I joined. So not queue jumping really as nobody else is turning left and I'm not entering the traffic going straight on. Or so I rationalise to myself. I think I save 10 minutes a day by not queuing.

I have been known to occasionally go in the quiet left hand lane past all the cars queueing to go ahead.

Then turn left.
Then turn into a side road, and get back onto the roundabout along the road I have just turned left onto.

Only occasionally and only when there is a massive queue to go ahead.

I do feel a little bit guilty.

Do you queue jump everywhere else op? Because that's what it is, plain and simple.

@stilll no, but in other queues I wait in, shops banks etc, 100% of the people are going in the same direction. That makes it different, to me. But everyone's different!

That makes it different, to me. But everyone's different

In a car, no one can make comments that you can hear.

Otherwise I would feel really guilty.

I suppose its like if you're waiting in a long queue in Aldi, and another till opens up but the people in front of you dont move over.
Do you stay where you are, or go to the free till? Would that be queue jumping?

No it's not like they at all.

It's more like you join the zig-zag queue but at the first bend instead of turning left and right until it's your turn like everyone else, you cut straight ahead and nip in quick before anyone can say anything.

I do it sometimes. There is a roundabout near my home, which splits into 3 lanes. The left hand lane is for left or straight on, the middle for straight on and the right for turning right. For some reason most of the cars going straight on go in the left hand lane causing an almighty queue. I want to turn left. Sometimes it's faster to go all the way round. In this case, it's not about waiting my turn, it's about avoiding the queue of numpties hogging the left hand lane for no reason when they're going straight on. They're probably the same people, who then hog the middle lane on the motorway.

I honestly thought this was illegal. There's a roundabout like this close to.work, complete with roundabout, and so many people were doing this that it fucked up the function iykwim. Nearly sure the local coppers posted a thing on FB about it

What I find irritating is when someone wants to turn right onto a main (busy) road and we sit there for ages waiting for a gap in the traffic, when they could just have gone left a short distance to a roundabout and then doubled back on themselves up the road they wanted in the first place. It doesn't seem to occur to some people. This happens in Chipping Norton!

Also, anyone else noticed how fewer and fewer people are bothering to indicate these days? I believe some models of car are manufactured with said indicators.

@dagenham I do that too, if I know there's a roundabout or a quiet side street nearby! I hate turning right onto main roads.