Multi-lane roundabouts

[flying haggis]

i remember on holiday once driving through paris and round the arc de triomphe roundabout (with 12 roads entering/leaving) and not even really noticing it. which on reflection is how the locals do it!

 

[flying haggis]

I remember when they opened this one in Hemel Hempstead back in the 70's. One of those mini-roundabout affairs where you took the shortest route to your exit. I think the first of these was in Colchester but that only had three or four feeder roads.
On the first day it started operating, there was a raised platform in the centre with a young guy (from the Transport Agency?) on top with a clipboard monitoring the antics of the drivers. He was clinging to the platform guardrail and almost wetting himself with laughter. :lol:

Pete

thats Swindon not HH

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I don't imagine Cornwall CC is the only council to take a roundabout that worked fairly well and spend £4.5 million ballsing it up totally.

 

[woodhutt]

[/quote]thats Swindon not HH[/quote]

Oops! Wrong pic. Here's the right one. You can still see the observation platform in the centre so this must have been taken when fairly new.

Pete

 

[Nigel Burden]

I don't imagine Cornwall CC is the only council to take a roundabout that worked fairly well and spend £4.5 million ballsing it up totally.

No, The Highways Agency spent IIAC, £12.5 million on the Canford Bottom roundabout joining the Ferndown and Wimborne bypasses turning it into a hamburger junction, some say just for the 2012 Olympics, supposedly to ease traffic heading west to Weymouth. It's an abomination, with the banks either side of the A31 which goes through the middle, too high, especially when the grass has grown
obscuring the direction signs not giving drivers a chance to plan which lane to head for.

Nigel.

 

[Nigel Burden]

I remember when they opened this one in Hemel Hempstead back in the 70's. One of those mini-roundabout affairs where you took the shortest route to your exit. I think the first of these was in Colchester but that only had three or four feeder roads.
On the first day it started operating, there was a raised platform in the centre with a young guy (from the Transport Agency?) on top with a clipboard monitoring the antics of the drivers. He was clinging to the platform guardrail and almost wetting himself with laughter. :lol:

Pete

Yep.

My wife had to negotiate that when she took her friend up to Swindon to get a puppy. She didn't have any problems with it though, and according to a member from Swindon on the Advanced Driving Hub Forum, actually improved traffic flow.

Nigel.

thats Swindon not HH

 

[Phil Pascoe]

No, The Highways Agency spent IIAC, £12.5 million on the Canford Bottom roundabout ... some say just for the 2012 Olympics ...
Nigel.

I don't suppose anyone will ever admit the true cost of the 2012 Olympics. :?

 

[Nigel Burden]

No, The Highways Agency spent IIAC, £12.5 million on the Canford Bottom roundabout ... some say just for the 2012 Olympics ...
Nigel.

I don't suppose anyone will ever admit the true cost of the 2012 Olympics. :?

Do they admit to anything?

Nigel.

 

[flying haggis]

these funny roundabouts are even more fun when you are driving a 60ft wagon and drag DAMHIKT!! mind you others motorists seem reluctant to get in your way...........

 

[treeturner123]

Glad someone mentioned Swindon. It also has several other odd ones.

However, re the car not taking much notice of the roundabout, my father used to tell the story of when he was in the army based in Chepstow. The young soldiers were being taught to drive a small tracked personnel carrier on the highway. The instructor told the trainee driver 'Straight over the next roundabout'.....So he did!!!

 

[Nigel Burden]

I remember when out on a driving lesson seeing my neighbour in his lorry fully loaded with paper moving on to a roundabout from a standing start uphill. The view to his right would not have been sufficient for him to assess a gap where he didn't impact a driver coming from that road. Anyway, as he got the tractor unit onto the roundabout there was a blast of a horn, some plonker coming from his right got impatient and didn't make allowances for the fact that the truck was fully laden, probably 38/40 tons and would not make rapid progress. He had to wait a bit longer as my neighbour stopped the lorry and looked around as if he didn't know where the horn came from. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Nigel.

 

[Nigel Burden]

Glad someone mentioned Swindon. It also has several other odd ones.

However, re the car not taking much notice of the roundabout, my father used to tell the story of when he was in the army based in Chepstow. The young soldiers were being taught to drive a small tracked personnel carrier on the highway. The instructor told the trainee driver 'Straight over the next roundabout'.....So he did!!!

As a retired driving instructor myself, you have to be very careful how you phrase instructions/directions.

I remember a few years ago a pupil of mine becoming very confused on her first test when the examiner, ex military, said, " At the junction ahead, turn right." The problem was that she was entering a one way system where she had to go left. What he meant was, that the road that he wanted her to take was basically the penultimate exit of a gyratory where she had to go around the houses. He had to take action, test failed. When we discussed the test later, she said I became so confused as he told me to turn right but I knew it was a one way system. As I hadn't encountered this examiner before I hadn't fore warned her. Speaking to another instructor a few weeks later about this, he said that he'd had exactly the same thing with that examiner on the same junction and he complained to the Chief Examiner about it and that the said examiner had been rapped over the knuckles over his terminology.

Nigel.

 

[Suffolkboy]

I sympathise with the OP. Roads are so badly marked in this country when it comes to being in the correct lane. When I drove in the US, you know well in advance which lane is 'right turn only' or 'straight ahead only' or whatever. The signs are repeated enough for everyone to see.

And you can't always go around again, e.g. when you end up in a right turn only lane, or a slip road on the left.

Better signing is needed.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

if you end up in a slip road, or a right turn only lane then surely you ha e left the roundabout already?