{"id":8254,"date":"2012-02-19T21:54:32","date_gmt":"2012-02-19T21:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=8254"},"modified":"2022-10-28T10:37:30","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T09:37:30","slug":"how-not-to-do-roundabouts-and-other-junctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=8254","title":{"rendered":"How NOT To Do Roundabouts (And Other Junctions)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note that this is a very old post from 2012. As of 2022, I have a decent dashcam and – best of all – the Police accept online submissions of footage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today was one of those days. It started off with some idiot stopped completely on a mini-roundabout (they were giving way to traffic coming on to it). I was still in a good mood as far as other road users go at that point.<\/p>\n

Then, not more than 40 minutes later, I was entering the Nottingham Knight roundabout \"Greenin the ONLY lane for going straight ahead. The other two lanes are marked left-only \u2013 but that didn\u2019t stop the prat in the green Mini Cooper (reg. no. K5 CKR<\/span>) trying to use one of them to go ahead. I saw him\/her swing in behind me, and then across to the inside<\/strong> lane (that\u2019s the one for going right), and then cut back in again. You actually only need to use one lane to go straight ahead properly, but this prat used three \u2013 two of them incorrectly.<\/p>\n

Later, driving to Long Eaton with a pupil, we were at the Bardill\u2019s roundabout, going ahead \"Silverdown the A52. As the lights changed, this pillock in a silver estate car (reg. no. PN55 JJL<\/span>) was in the inside lane (marked for turning left into Toton). As the lights changed, he shot forward and cut everybody up to move into the middle lane for straight ahead. He quickly swung out into the outside lane, but his rather excessive speed was curtailed by another car.<\/p>\n

Then, driving into the City Centre with a pupil, we stopped at the lights on the other side of \"DarkLady Bay Bridge. We were in the middle lane behind a large transporter \u2013 unlike everyone else, who was piling into the right hand lane to try and get past the transporter, not considering the fact that he was there because he needed the turning circle. One or two managed to cut the transporter up, but not the dark Fiat Punto (reg. no. YH52 TZK<\/span>), who got stuck behind, and who was even more put out when the transporter then signalled to move into his lane. The Punto wasn\u2019t going to give way to anyone else, so he cut us up by moving across three lanes to get right into the left hand one. Of course, if he\u2019d gone behind the transporter in\u00a0 the first place, like we did, he wouldn\u2019t have had to ignore me at the next set of red lights as I used universal sign language to describe his mental capacity.<\/p>\n

And finally today, driving through Mapperley, we were at one of the dozens of sets of traffic \"Bluelights our illustrious council has decided to replace (even though there was nothing wrong with the old ones). In other words, there were fair-sized queues because of the temporary three-way lights standing in for the complete absence of any kind of workforce. The normal two lanes is down to one, and as we pulled up, one woman cut us up to make sure she got through first. I didn\u2019t get her reg. no. \u2013 but the second one who tried it pissed me off \u2013 another young woman with a zit-faced youth in the passenger seat (blue Ford Ka, reg. no. X166 FLK<\/span>).<\/p>\n

On the one hand, when you\u2019re teaching pupils how to do things properly, these people make a mockery of the Highway Code and give full justification for the huge insurance premiums young drivers have to pay.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, having to share the road with such troglodytes can be used as an excellent teaching opportunity. It\u2019s so predictable how people are going to drive, you can actually say \u201cnow, watch this car in front \u2013 he\u2019s likely to cut in\u201d.<\/p>\n

And they do!<\/p>\n

Seriously, though, I have a lot of conversations with pupils about the large number of full licence holders who simply can\u2019t do roundabouts (and other things) properly. Even the ones who think they\u2019re being clever (the young males, usually) are only hiding their inability to do things the right way.<\/p>\n