All the way round roundabouts ???

Mgman1965

Is it acceptable to go all the way round them (effectively a U turn) ?

Village on my very busy route to work has a mini-roundabout and residents find it hard at peak times to turn right onto the main road so, many turn left and then go all the way round the roundabout.

I've seen this cause several near misses and seems a risky manoeuvre.

daveyjp

To try and understand this.

T junction onto main road, turning right is difficult.

Turn left towards a mini roundabout, enter roundabout and do a 180 and go back along main road?

Nothing wrong with that.

RichardD1970

As long as there's room to make the manoeuvre (you say a mini roundabout so could be tight) and they signal appropriately then I don't see a problem.

Car_54

Highway Code 188. Avoid u-turns at mini-roundabouts, and beware of others doing it. The reason is (1) that the size of a mini r/a makes it difficult or impossible and (2) other road users don’t expect it. I’ve certainly seen a few people over the years having to stop and reverse.

chrisw

Car_54 wrote: »

Highway Code 188. Avoid u-turns at mini-roundabouts, and beware of others doing it. The reason is (1) that the size of a mini r/a makes it difficult or impossible and (2) other road users don’t expect it. I’ve certainly seen a few people over the years having to stop and reverse.

That's strange. There's a junction near me which a while ago was made into left turn only, forcing you down to the mini roundabout and to u-turn back if you'd needed to go right.

And yes, it is difficult to swing round as it has metal pedestrian barriers around it and yes I have seen a number of near misses.

Car_54

chrisw wrote: »

That's strange. There's a junction near me which a while ago was made into left turn only, forcing you down to the mini roundabout and to u-turn back if you'd needed to go right.

And yes, it is difficult to swing round as it has metal pedestrian barriers around it and yes I have seen a number of near misses.

But is it really a mini-roundabout? I.e. no physical barrier in the middle? A mini-roundabout has a painted disc in the middle and arrows surrounding it.

lister

Car_54 wrote: »

But is it really a mini-roundabout? I.e. no physical barrier in the middle? A mini-roundabout has a painted disc in the middle and arrows surrounding it.

Being slightly pendantic for accurancy, a mini-roundabout may have a painted centre, indeed will usually have a painted centre, but doesn't have to have one.

I know of plenty with low built up centres, but are clearly marked as mini-roundabouts by their nice blue mini-roundabout sign (the defining characteristic of whether it is a mini or not).

chrisw

Car_54 wrote: »

But is it really a mini-roundabout? I.e. no physical barrier in the middle? A mini-roundabout has a painted disc in the middle and arrows surrounding it.

Yes it's a painted disc, here:-



You can see some of the bent railings where people keep hitting them.

daveyjp

OP. If this is an issue request a mini round about at the problem junction.

bartelbe

That roundabout looks more than large enough for a car to do a safe U-turn on. If people just remember to give way to vehicles on the roundabout, there shouldn't be an issue.

facade

daveyjp wrote: »

OP. If this is an issue request a mini round about at the problem junction.

How does that help? If you can't turn right at a T junction because of traffic from the right, you can't turn right at a roundabout because of traffic from the right..... (People find it much easier to pull out left virtually under the wheels of a car approaching from the right than they do to cross its path, even though crossing its path causes less disruption to the approaching car)


All islands do is stop people who aren't following the main flow of traffic from ever joining it, which is why big busy islands need lights to halt the main flow of traffic.




Traffic lights would help.