Imagine coming upon the Magic Roundabout by accident, without ever hearing of such a contraption before. =8O NOT one of my more pleasant experiences.
My advice: go for it, and don’t worry. It’s not hard at all, and the flipped car actually helps you remember to drive on the left. After an hour or so, it’s second nature. Niether of the London airports are actually in London proper, so go ahead and rent your car there. (Heathrow’s rental car lot (er, carpark) even has a helpful: DRIVE ON THE LEFT! painted on the ground at the exit.)
grimpixie what do you mean about french roundabouts? I’ve driven on many of them, and they’re just like the British ones (albeit counter-clockwise.) The road leading up to them always says: “Vous n’avez priorite” (sp?) = “You don’t have the right-of-way”.
Um, perhaps the simplest way is to remember your position, relative to the road, should be in the centre of a two-way carriageway or at least towards the centre in a dual (or more) carriageway.
I have done the reverse (driven in America) and, apart from an early “Doh!” pulling out of the rental place, found driving in the US to be a doddle. I find it harder to understand how you guys have so many accidents. When you drive here, remember the roads are generally much more narrow and give yourself time to acclimatise.
I take it you didn’t visit New England, then. We have lots, there are 4 within 30 miles of where I live for example- though they’re called “traffic circles” or “rotaries” more often than roundabouts- and they seem to terrify many out-of-state tourists for some reason.
Well, if you live in New England, especially Massachusetts, as has been noted - and especially in Boston or Cambridge or that area, you’ll be pretty used to basic rotaries/roundabouts. Want some practice? We’ve even got a two-laner in Concord. It’s nasty, but easier than it looks. Don’t know why people are so frightened of them.
It sounds like it’s the little things that you need to pay attention about, not the side of the road. I guess that’s pretty simple.
Here in Australia, roundabouts are everywhere. Most suburban areas developed in the past 20 years have one at almost every intersection. The stop signs in older suburbs are steadily replaced with new roundabouts.
Two-lane roundabouts are nothing unusual. There’s a famous roundabout in the south-west of my state it has about half a dozen exits. It’s so big, you could play a game of football in the park in the middle; from one side, you can’t see all the possible roundabout exits.
My stepdad says traffic circles are there specifically to scare people into slowing down and being more careful. He may have a point there. They scare the crap outta ME. There is at least one in New Orleans, though it was nothing next to the one in that link above, and I wasn’t driving anyway.
That being said, several years ago Mom was on a trip to Ireland and didn’t have any real problems with driving, except for turning on the wipers accidentally a bunch at first. It wasn’t nearly as scary as she thought it might be.
