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That's just nuts!!! Who let the 'work experience kid' loose with the road plans? It may be fine if you are used to it, but pity the poor buggers who come across it for the first time! And it only takes one person who doesn't know what they are doing to cause an accident. Call me stupid, but that looks like an accident waiting to happen!!
It may be nuts - but it does work, and has been there (in the same format) for some thirty years now, and has coped admirably with the huge increase in traffic during that time.
Having grown up in swindon I'm all to familiar with it. Just before my first encounder with it while learning to drive, my instructor pulled us over to show me a photocopy of the official plans while he explained how to navigate it.
Apparently people used to drive miles out of their way to avoid the thing. It IS a bit overwhelming the first time you hit it. Easy to lose your bearings in heavy traffic too.
I grew up in Swindon and went over the magic roundabout on my first lesson. it is a fantastic concept that works well but the world is full of fecking idiots.
I now live in Indianapolis, IN and would take the magic roundabout over all these dumb ass traffic lights any day. Mind you with the standard of the average 'Soccer Mom' driving over here anything approaching a decent roundabout would represent carnage.
Incidently the Indiana State Police are the biggest bunch of F**CK**ERS I have ever met and like to pull me over even when I am not speeding because they don't have to provide any proof I was speeding outside of the'officers' judgement . At least the British police in my experience have a sense of fai play.
Maybe it is my fault for driving a red JCW with a Union Jack roof.
The Plough roundabout at Hemel Hempstead is very similar. Each of its mini-roundabouts is treated as a normal roundabout, and the main roundabout is only there to completely distract you, as are perfectly entitled to turn right or left. This means you can quite easily find yourself driving anti-clockwise around the main roundabout. On its opening day in 1973 the traffic backed up all the way to Berkhamstead.
If you have never tackled it before, bring a clean pair of pants with you!
Seems to be an ever increasing number of people who dont know how to use a roundabout, they are even worse on the mini roundabouts, some even indicate the wrong way, I.e stick there right hand inicator on to go round the roundabout (fair enough) but dont inicate at the exit they are coming off at.
Or lane discpline, so many people take the shortest route and chop people up instead of using the marked out lanes, grrr! I dont claim to be the best driver in the world by far, but there are an ever increasing number of bad drivers out there.
Then there are the other sort that use there fog lights when there is no falling snow or fog why why why? Fools (looks good in a pic - end of)
And on one of those routes - the Devizes road, there is an even worse roundabout - just about 500 metres from The Magic Roundabout.
Well I say 'roundabout', it is in fact an 'elipsabout', and it's almost impossible to negotiate without breaking the law. Remember that driving over a mini roundabout is an offence - this one forces you over the middle, it's shaped like a giant pittabread !
From my understaning of the official rules over here, if you're going straight ahead at a roundabout, you must indicate left when entering, then indicate left when exiting. But in practice that can be very confusing for other drivers, as they don't know what you're doing. Roundabouts in this country are only used by councils that don't want to fork out the extra dosh to pay for a traffic light. As for that "Swindon nightmare", I wonder if the reason for it's existence is that they were trying to pay homage to Stone Henge (which is not that far away from there)
I have to admit though, as good a driver as I am, I'm lazy at roundabouts, If I'm going straight ahead I won't indicate at all, I'll only indicate if I'm actually turning left or right. But we have nothing like that thing over here
From Highway code: Mini-roundabouts Approach these in the same way as normal roundabouts. All vehicles MUST pass round the central markings except large vehicles which are physically incapable of doing so. Remember, there is less space to manoeuvre and less time to signal. Beware of vehicles making U-turns.
Note that in the case of the "pitta" roundabout you would be classed as a large vehicle that is physically incapable of passing round the markings.
A lot of people think this only applies to lorrys but it just means any vehicle that is too big for the particular roundabout regardless of it's relative size.
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. At least the British police in my experience have a sense of fai play.
