Roundabouts, does inside lane have priority onto it's left lane?

Lum

jase1 wrote: »

I was always under the impression that if the lane is >12 o'clock, or the exit is 3rd or more after the entry point, right-lane is correct unless signposted otherwise. 12 o'clock dead, second exit is a grey area and either are generally acceptable, especially in dual carriageway situations.

There's an element of common sense needs to be applied.

I know of one roundabout which has 2 single lane exits, one at 9 o'clock and one at 12 o'clock. The road you approach it in has 2 lanes.

The signpost shows the second exit at the 2 o'clock position, coming off at an angle then immediately straightening up.

Thing is those who supposedly know the roundabout all queue in the left hand lane to go straight on, and the right hand lane is completely empty.

Unless you think this roundabout needs a dedicated U-turn lane (it doesn't) surely the correct solution is to follow the bloody sign and go up the right hand lane to go straight on.

I used to do that daily, and so long as you avoid being alongside another car, it works just fine, knocked about 10 minutes off my hometime commute.

jase1

Oh absolutely -- but the fact is (and your example is a good one here), if there is a sign, and people ignore that sign, they are always in the wrong, period. No common sense required -- you follow the directions laid out for you or expect to eventually be chastised by a more alert road-user, or worse, hit by an inattentive one.

EDIT: Ah right, sorry, I thought you'd said there was a sign instructing people to use the right-hand lane for second exit.

In the absence of that, yes common sense is required. That kind of roundabout though does require a modicum of common-sense by the right-lane user as well, as the chap in the left generally has right of way exiting into the single lane. It's not unheard of for me to either boot it to get safely ahead of someone to my left, or go around again in extreme situations on roundabouts like this.

Lum

But the sign doesn't say what lane to get in. It just (incorrectly) shows that the second exit is at 2 o'clock.

But if you actually follow that sign, you end up in the lane that the designers of that roundabout presumably intended.

My favourite example of not applying common sense, and one I made a thread about on here a while back, is the exit from the A48 coming out of Cardiff for people who want to take the little dual carriage way link road to M4 J30.

You have 3 lanes on the sliproad, and the roundabout has a single lane exit at 8 o'clock going into a housing estate, a 2 lane exit at 10 o'clock going on to the dual carriageway and the only other options are to return to the A48 via the 12 o'clock exit or to do a U turn and go on the A48 back towards Cardiff. There is no actual right turn.

Clearly very few people will be leaving the A48 only to go straight back onto A48, so we are left with a 3 lane sliproad with 3 lanes on the left that you can exit into.

Everyone queues in Lane 1 regardless of where they are going, so that's two lanes all for myself!

reeac

zagfles wrote: »

What complete rubbish! At a roundabout if signage is poor and you're not sure where you're going, keeping right is the "fail safe" option. Then if you see you should have turned left, you go once round the roundabout and get off on the second go! Far safer than staying on the left and then realising you need to go right, cutting up traffic which was in the middle lane wanting to go straight!

The point about keeping left is that if you then see that the exit that you need is at 3 o'clock then you don't cross lanes to the R.H. lane and then promptly cross back again to the LH lane - that involves several lane changes. You just stay in your LH lane until you get to the 3 o'clock exit. Your "cutting up traffic which was in the middle lane" would come about as a result of a slavish obsession with being in the correct lane. It's like those who constantly switch lanes on motorways, going into small gaps between vehicles in the middle or LH lane and then immediately out again under the impression that they're driving correctly by keeping the RH lane only for overtaking. All they're doing by all that lane switching is increasing the chances of a collision e.g. by two vehicles lane changing simultaneously into the same space. Every lane change carries with it a small but finite chance of an accident.

Let's make it clear that I'm in favour of correct lane useage on roundabouts when the signs are clear and you know where you're going - my fail safe system is, as I stated originally, is for non-ideal conditions.

jase1

I think your "fail safe" approach is dangerous and stupid, frankly.

If you go right on a roundabout on the left where other drivers are trying to come off said roundabout having correctly taken the right-hand lane, you are going to cause an accident one day.

It's contrary to the highway code and I regularly sound my horn at drivers who do this.

*If* you make a point of indicating whilst going around on the left, then the impact of your actions is lessened. But absolutely invariably the drivers I see going all round a roundabout on the left lane don't bother to indicate either. One day one of them will be swiped by a bus, and I'll have no sympathy for them whatsoever.

For the record, the safest approach to a roundabout where you are unsure of your exit point, is to enter in the right hand lane and go around the roundabout, with indicators, for as many times as you need to acclimatise yourself. Why should other drivers have to suffer for your (frankly) laziness?

zagfles

reeac wrote: »

The point about keeping left is that if you then see that the exit that you need is at 3 o'clock then you don't cross lanes to the R.H. lane and then promptly cross back again to the LH lane - that involves several lane changes. You just stay in your LH lane until you get to the 3 o'clock exit. Your "cutting up traffic which was in the middle lane" would come about as a result of a slavish obsession with being in the correct lane.

No it isn't. Roundabouts often have 2-lane exits, if you're in the left lane of the roundabout coming up to an exit with 2 lanes, then not to exit would be dangerous, unless you were certain there was no-one to your right wanting to exit. Two lane exits exist so that two lanes of traffic can exit, obviously. So it's perfectly reasonable for traffic in the second lane of the roundabout to take the exit. It's not reasonable for traffic in the left lane not to exit.

It is far safer to use my method when you're not certain which exit to take.

It's like those who constantly switch lanes on motorways, going into small gaps between vehicles in the middle or LH lane and then immediately out again under the impression that they're driving correctly by keeping the RH lane only for overtaking. All they're doing by all that lane switching is increasing the chances of a collision e.g. by two vehicles lane changing simultaneously into the same space. Every lane change carries with it a small but finite chance of an accident.

Yes, but nothing whatsoever to do with roundabout behaviour. Many roundabouts have "spiral" lanes anyway, where the lanes spiral outwards.

Let's make it clear that I'm in favour of correct lane useage on roundabouts when the signs are clear and you know where you're going - my fail safe system is, as I stated originally, is for non-ideal conditions.

Your method isn't fail safe. Far from it. It's far more likely to lead to an accident than mine.

photome

londonTiger wrote: »

thanks, bloody insurers, dont want to spend man hours investigating these things so they just go for split liability.

Maybe so but if you get in to the correct lane on entry and then use your eyes to look over your shoulder if necersary then there shouldnt be anything to investigate

andygb

forgotmyname wrote: »

If there is a car to your left taking your exit then you were probably in the wrong lane.
As above not being able to see them in the mirror. You turn your head and check your blind spots BEFORE making the move.

I just wonder why there is a car to your left though? Are you in the wrong lane?

There is a long slip road off the A2 near to where I live, and people get it wrong nearly every time.
The slip road is dual carriageway about half a mile long, and at the end is a largish roundabout with excellent visibility from all directions. At the roundabout, there are two options - the first exit (at 90 degrees, immediate left, then the second exit (at 270 degrees) which is three quarters of the way around the roundabout.
The majority of people stay in the inside lane, even if they want to take the second exit, and then beep people (like myself) in the outside lane, or try to cut across (straightline) the roundabout, simply because they do not like to be overtaken by someone who has a sense of lane discipline.
I have also seen someone in the outside lane go hurtling down and then cut in at the last moment to take the first exit, but then you always get nutters as well.

fivetide

Here's the one I was talking about earlier and fits in with what lum was saying. As you should just be able to see, it's a huge roundabout with three lanes coming off the motorway slip.

The lanes are marked A9 and then A905 and... A905

The first A905 exit is past twelve o'clock but is the straight on that is marked out. The other A905 is clearly off the the right. The sheer volume of people who get in the righthand lane and then get grumpy when trying to exit at the first turn off is amazing. Non of them seem to realise that the right lane is for... er... turning right.

Plus the roundabout has no lanes marked on it and is very busy so essentially you all have to go at once which means you are generally side by side with another car leaving the same junction so it is very easy to be next to each other the whole way round.

Another case of there being no 'typical' roundabout. I have noticed in Scotland though more roundabouts have a left lane for left only while the right lane is right and straight on. Doesn't of course stop people going straight on in the left lane and again, believing they have done nothing wrong whilst giving you abuse for driving properly and looking at the blooming great big arrows drawn on the road.



5t.

PDC

The problem is normally a locals who know where they are going and are going too fast and people who don't know the area and are trying to read the road signs as they drive, that and the speed modern cars corner.

The whole idea of a roundabout is to slow the traffic and allow it to filter but many people I see seem to view them as a chance to get their cars on three wheels.