Peter Smythe:
Seems that emerging onto roundabouts is a matter of some concern lately on the forum So I thought I’d put together a little tutorial to keep everyone out of trouble and safe.Biggest problem is often a lack of planning on the approach to the roundabout or, almost worse, over thinking the situation.
Let’s look at the fundamental rules:
If you make someone slow down or stop, you’re almost certainly wrong
If a vehicle coming from your right has no signal on, it’s coming across your path. If it doesn’t it won’t matter at all.So look at the approach to the roundabout. Take all the information you can and then compute it. The obvious things to consider are: traffic ahead of you, density of traffic actually on the roundabout and especially on the approach road to your right. If all these are looking grim, you’re 99% going nowhere for a while. So nice steady approach to the waiting traffic ahead of you, expecting to stop but always with the mindset of wanting to go if possible.
The temptation now is to look at the traffic ahead of you and trundle up to the roundabout without studying what’s actually happening on the roundabout. A lesser sin, but still not good, is to concentrate on the road to your right. You should be looking across the roundabout waiting to spot the left signal of the vehicle that’s going to turn into the road you’re already on. He will be blocking the road to your right and, depending on the size, weight, acceleration characteristics of your vehicle, that may be your opportunity. Release the park brake when you see him in the distance (unless facing uphill) and start rolling asap. This means you’re on the roundabout for the shortest possible time. Continual mirror use will inform you how long it takes for your particular vehicle to get going and get clear of a lane.
There are rare occasions when the “acceptable space” can be shortened a little. ROG alluded to this previously. If you’re waiting and waiting and there’s little let up in the traffic, it can be acceptable on test (and in the real world) to slow someone down A TINY BIT. This will not involve the other vehicle having to brake – simply easing off the loud pedal. But don’t ever use this opportunity straight away. I would suggest you will have been waiting at least 2 minutes (which seems more like 20 minutes on a test). The same procedure applies turning at a junction.
So take the effort to work out exactly what’s happening but be ready to react to it. Any delay in making the decision to “go” and putting it into practice will inevitably lead to traffic bearing down on you.
I must make it clear that no-one will fail a test for waiting for the correct space. Neither is it in any way a fail if another road user signals incorrectly.
In closing, just to be clear, it’s really down to your planning and observation. In busy cities this can be a nightmare and takes practice to get it right. But it can be done. Patience and planning.
All the best, Pete
This^^ spot on Pete