Roundabouts ?

T

TarfHead

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2-lane road leading into roundabout.

If exiting at 1st exit, approach roundabout from left lane of 2 lanes - correct ?
If exiting at 3rd exit, approach roundabout from right lane of 2 lanes - correct ?

If exiting at 2nd exit, approach roundabout from which lane ?
If there are two cars, side by side, on roundabout looking to take 2nd exit, one will have to concede. Who has right of way ?

Thanks
 
Unless otherwise signposted or marked on the road - stay in the left leane for the first two exits
 
sysman said:
Unless otherwise signposted or marked on the road - stay in the left leane for the first two exits
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This is a little general.
I did my driving test in the last year and the rule of thumb is:
Anything upto and including 12 on a clock face is the left lane and anything after 12 on a clock face is the right lane.
 
If you take the inside lane and want to get off at the second exit, there has to be two lanes (even if you have to merge quickly) off the second exit, otherwise you will be in the wrong. If you are allowed to use the inside lane when intending to take the second exit, it will/should be marked on the road. This was never mentioned during my driving lessons, but this was proabably due to the fact that there were fewer of these roundabouts in 'olden times'.
 
If you want to take the second exit AND are in the inside lane then I suggest you continue around the roundabout until you get the exit you want. This way, you don't have to cross anybody else's lane.
 
And as always, use common sense! It's better to be alive than to be dead but "in the right"!
 
MargeSimpson said:
If you want to take the second exit AND are in the inside lane then I suggest you continue around the roundabout until you get the exit you want. This way, you don't have to cross anybody else's lane.
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With the above I hope you meant the outside lane, as in the right hand side lane.

According to the rules of the road, the left hand lane is for the first 2 exits. The right hand lane is for the third and subsequent exit. You may only use the right hand lane to take the second exit if the second exit is a 2 laned road.

End of story, thats what the rules say.
 
Agree with legend99. Left lane for 1st and 2nd exits and right hand lane for 3rd exit. That's what I was taught anyway.

Slightly off the subject, but what is it with people indicating left going onto a roundabout when they are not taking the 1st exit. There are so many people doing this.

I was taught that you only indicate left coming onto a roundabout if you are taking the 1st exit. If you are taking the 2nd exit, you go onto the roundabout and indicate left after the 1st exit. And if you are taking the 3rd exit you indicate right until you pass the 2nd exit and then indicate left.

It's mental. I've nearly pulled out in front of cars that do this. They are coming from the exit before mine, then indicate left to take the exit I am on and they proceed past it to the next exit. I learn by mistakes, never trust an indicator.

Sorry, rant over.
 
Now try and apply those rules to the Malahide Rd Roundabout between Swords & Malahide ! ;)
 
With the above I hope you meant the outside lane, as in the right hand side lane.
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Agreed Legend99. it always gets to me when people use the terms inside lane, outside lane instead of left or right.

Also another pet hate is people calling the right hand lane on a Dual Cariageway / Motorway the "fast lane" but thats a story for another thread!!!
 
"If there are two cars, side by side, on roundabout looking to take 2nd exit, one will have to concede. Who has right of way ?"
AFAIK the rule is that you always give way to traffic on your right.
 
:rolleyes: As one who has made a point of studying roundabout behaviour along with Mrs Leatherarse, we have discovered that the worst offenders are taxi drivers and females. The protocol has already been gone over here and I would hope people cop on and use it. Whilst on the subject of motoring etiquette the biggest gripe I have at the moment is thaty 75% of motorists do not have one iota of motorway sense. It is only a matter of time until we have an English style pile up with severe consequences due to these no-brainers :mad:
 
Not really a roundabout experience, but it was on the approach to one - this morning I approached roundabout in the right hand lane as the left hand lane is a bus lane, when bus lane ended I indicated and started to move into gap to get into left lane. At this point I got blasted out of it by a driver in the bus lane. This really gets my back up as every morning it's the same story, and the bus lane is always full of cars. I always stay out of it, indicate and pull in after bus lane ends. Usually those wrongfully in the bus lane give way. The fact that this driver blasted their horn indicates to me that they thought they were in the right - which is worrying.

I have to say I'm not cutting them up - mirror signal manouver - and all that. But at the same time I'm not timid (if you were in rush hour Dublin traffic you'd never get anywhere),I do expect to be let in given that they are illegally in the bus lane. I wish there was a universal sign language (not expletives) to explain to other drivers.
 
Ah - it was only a matter of time before we had our first "road rage" topic here on our new vBulletin home...!
 
So what happens if the second exit is after the '12 oclock point' on the roundabout.
Do you suggest I still take the left lane??
 
Twis fab in Cork...they have redone the markings and added traffic lights to two of the roundabouts on the South Link Road, the Sarsfield road roundabout and the Bandon Road roundabout. Both of these are classic X type roundabotu with the 4 roads intersecting at 90 degrees to each other.
but the legends in the council have made a joke of them, esp the Bandon road roundabout. In fact i saw recently on the paper that since they did the new markings, the number of accidents has shot up and they are now going back to reconsider what to do.

An example: they made the hard shoulder on one appraoch into a third lane. So you had a left hand lane(former hard shoulder), middle lane and right hand lane. They decided to paint on a LEFT turning arrow into the midle lane. So most people going straight on were in the left hand lane,as this is the way it had been for circa 10 years+, and you had a few lost lonely souls in the middle lane turning left according to their arrow. So of course you had the middle lane cutting in front of the left lane, cue uproar, roaring shouting and for the unlukcy ones a large dent.

they had to send their crew back out to burn off the left arrow in the middle lane.

I'll tell you, for anyone who uses the Bishopstown area in Cork there is a full time job in road markings and their rmeoval a week or two later. Over the last three months they have been painting on and taking back off white road marjkings every few weeks. I mean, no wonder councils have no money. its a catasphroe.

heres one just as good. Woodies in Cork recently moved 500 yards and as a consequence they changed the traffic lights at the new junction they created. previoslu to this it had been a T junction, but with a new road into the new Woodies its now a crossroads. On one of the approach roads there had always been a left filter arrow, which was green 75% of the time at least. Never traffic build up, worked very well. As part of the new junction they took away the filter. i finally snapped the other day and rang the traffic lights people in Cork City Council.
Check this out. the contractor who did the Woodies was the one who was allowed change the lights and noone in the Council realised until weeks later that the filter was gone. So the council have put in a 'request' to the contractors from Woodies to sort it out. in fact the council 'thought' it had been done until I assured the guy it wasn't done.
So 2 questions.
Why was Joe Punter contractor even allowed touch those traffic lights without a Council Engineer being present?
If they did balls it up, as the Engineer told me, why didn't the council immediatly fix it themselves and send the bill for doing it to the contractor??


I mean, someone reassure me here, but are the people who make these decisions in Councils just stupid or is there a more complex explantion?
Because i could spend 2 or 3 hours detailing disasters they have done in Cork just within the last 6 months alone. And in most instances they had to come back out and undo the messed up work and redo it a different way or in fact just put it back the way it used be. So much money wasted. I mean, its just insane like.
 
MargeSimpson said:
So what happens if the second exit is after the '12 oclock point' on the roundabout.
Do you suggest I still take the left lane??
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My reading of the rules of the road makes no diff. where the second exit is. The second exit is simply the second exit.
 
There's a roundabout a few miles outside Clonmel with 2 exits. 1st goes Kilkenny direction, 2nd goes Waterford direction, no 3rd exit. 2 lanes on approach to the roundabout. Causes a bit of confusion but there's never TOO much traffic there for it to be a problem. If I'm driving away from Clonmel and taking the 2nd exit (which is roughly 1 o'clock), I get in the right hand lane but other drivers taking the 2nd exit go in the left hand lane, my other half tells me I should go in the LH lane, but I said "so whats the RH lane for then?" and he said its for going round the roundabout and going back to clonmel (as you do!)

I did my test in clonmel and asked my instructor about this, just to kind of settle the bet at home, and he told me the 12 o'clock rule.
 
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