To be in absolute awe of roundabout designers / planners

[Witchofzog]

I passed my driving test relatively recently and am still slightly nervous on really big roundabouts with numerous lanes. But because I have been thinking about them and navigating them I am in awe at how hard it must be to get all the lanes to start and end in the right place and how difficult it must be to coordinate the traffic lights to ensure good flow of traffic and no accidents. I mean you start off in the right lane and then end up in the left lane after a while. It's amazing.

Maybe I have just had too much sun today though

Have a look at the magic roundabout in Swindon

And hemel

If a roundabout has traffic lights on it, they've designed it wrong. That totally defeats the purpose!

The magic roundabout in Swindon will blow your mind

Roundabouts with traffic lights drive me mad.

When people drive them properly roundabouts are great. I live in a town built around roundabouts

I grew up in Harlow. I had to master roundabouts pretty darn quickly in order to get anywhere

There's a throughabout in Darlington which is diabolical. It's only been a few years and they're going to dig it up and redo it.

If only they’d put all that energy into flyovers. Can’t stand round abouts. Especially on national speed limit roads. It’s partially having to slow down for no reason but mostly that it turns 50% of drivers into wankers.

If a roundabout has traffic lights on it, they've designed it wrong. That totally defeats the purpose!

Depends on the size of the roundabout, we have massive roundabouts that really need traffic lights as well as dozens of roundabouts with pelican crossings right as you exit, quite often with bad visibility of said crossing due to trees, bushes etc. They are a nightmare, god only knows who decided on that feature.

@Sirzy? Milton Keynes? I went there for a day and found nothing BUT roundabouts.

There are a number of difficult roundabouts near me ..A27 Chichester by pass...one in particular seems to have been designed by people who have never driven a car or thoroughly disapprove of those of us that do .Regular crashes , near misses and wrong lanes being used ...the best safety upgrade would be three police cars driving slowly abreast around it all day .

A friend of mine was driving through Milton Keynes, and went on a roundabout, somebody drove onto the roundabout and hit the back side of her car. When they got out to sort it the driver of the other car must've been having a bad day she said: 'Sorry I forgot there was a roundabout there'

We have an odd double roundabout with traffic lights on. When the lights fail the traffic flows better....

I've lived in Harlow, Stevenage and Bracknell - I love traffic lights

Just googled the Swindon round about That thing is complex and a bit scary!

A lot of junctions are designed to slow traffic, not speed it up ...

I hate, loathe and detest the A27. And it’s roundabouts. And it’s lorries, vans, speeding traffic, bridges. I particularly hate the Fishbourne roundabout and the one on to the A259.

There’s a ‘square ‘ roundabout near us and I don’t like that one either.

Depends on the size of the roundabout, we have massive roundabouts that really need traffic lights as well as dozens of roundabouts with pelican crossings right as you exit, quite often with bad visibility of said crossing due to trees, bushes etc. They are a nightmare, god only knows who decided on that feature.

We have several roundabouts with crossings on the exits. Utterly mental! So many people running the reds because they don’t realise there is a crossing there.

Witchofzog

I drive the Swindon Magic Roundabout every day for work. It’s not as complicated as it looks but people not following the arrows creates chaos.

There's a magic roundabout in Hemel as well that's always fun.

Have a look for this book:

Kevin Beresford

Roundabouts of Great Britain

Some roundabouts were a nightmare round here before they put traffic lights. Some of them only put the traffic lights on at peak times. Taking North West London - apex corner for eg

I think lots of countries don't have roundabouts as a thing at all

My first solo drive without instructor after I passed my test I had to negotiate Marble Arch and Hammersmith roundabouts. What a relief when I got home! But nothing in London scared me after that except I did get lost a few times - this was before satnav).