@anotherside wrote: "Thanks for your reply and I totally get what you’re saying. Although out of interest, is it honestly that case that in a driving test, an examiner would not mark for “hesitation”, if a student waited until a car indicating left had actually started their manoeuvre of turninf left (ie in the example exiting at my entrance). As by the time you’ve waited for them to actually begin that turning manoeuvre you may have well then missed a gap in the traffic on the roundabout and held up other cars.
I think the element of confusion comes from during driving lessons people (including examiners) frowning/marking down on “hesitation” - when in real life driving you HAVE to hesitate in roundabouts because you can’t trust anyways signals? I’m sure at least half a dozen times during driving lessons I heard instructors say “he was turning, so you could have gone” (but actually meaning he was showing he was “ABOUT TO turn, so you could have gone”)."
It is more complex than would/wouldn't mark a hesitation. The whole situation is assessed. So in the case you describe, the roundabout was quiet, and even if you have a few cars behind you, you wouldn't hold them up for long if you missed a chance that most experienced drivers would go for easily. Therefore probably no fault for hesitation.
If it was a really busy roundabout where you have to take small gaps, you might get away with not going for the first such gap, but once you have been there a while and should have an eye for the traffic on the roundabout, you will be getting into fault territory if you are not going for relatively straightforward gaps as you are now starting to have a significant effect on other traffic.
Of course there are really tight gaps that I might go for in such situations that I would never encourage a learner to take on. I do it because I am certain, absolutely certain, of my ability to make the car go when I want, at the speed I want, and my ability to back out at any point if I realise the situation is becoming unviable. Examiners, likewise, do not expect learners to take such gaps.
Another factor which may have come into your situation, and certainly does in general for inexperienced drivers at roundabouts, is when you move.
In addition to picking up on subtle cues in terms of road position, wheel position, speed etc. of other cars, experienced drivers tend to mitigate the risk of people do something you don't expect with the timing of their movement.
A typical situation this might apply is actually where you have a car without an indicator coming around the roundabout. Are they coming in front of me? Are they leaving at my exit so not a threat? Often if you wait until you see them commit to coming off, it is too late to get on. Experience leads you to go early enough that it doesn't matter where they are going. The same might apply to your situation though - would I have made a decision and gone before their actual destination became an issue - perhaps (I would need to be there to be sure obviously).