wanderingwombat

I remember seeing a car with caravan going the wrong way (????) around a roundabout in Canberra many years ago. Never could work out how they managed that one!

Probably sheer bloody determination!
WW

steve99

Is there another roundabout in High Wycombe called the Magic roundabout then?, the one I always knew of called this was in Hemel Hempstead. (only prob 10 -15 miles from High Wycombe) I lived in HH and worked in HW for about a year, I cant remember anything in HW that was as magical as our one in HH (for anyone that doesnt know of it, its one huge roundabout with traffic going one way on the inside and then about 6 smaller roundabouts on the main one with traffic going the opposite way around on a sort of outside lane
to be fair it worked really well if you knew how to use it, it was just the non-locals who used to make a mess of it...

webgum

The HH one sounds the same as the HW one. It certainly wasn't magical, although a little magic helped you negotiate it well.

steve99

Cetainly did, close your eyes and see if you make it to the other side

I do remember a big roundabout as you come off the M40junction at HW, it had loads of traffic lights at different stages of going round it, but it didnt have additional roundabouts like the Hemel one.
Im intrigued as to where it was now!
steve

steve99

http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/M/M...Hempstead).htm

amorris2

I live in Albury NSW and have the same problem. The aussies haven't got a clue how to negotiate a Roundabout. They stop when there isn't another vehicle within 1km and their turn signals are a complete confusion.
I have been to most European countries and have seen some pretty poor driving, but I actually think that Australian standard of driving must be one of the worst in the world.

arkon

True, it is NSW, so just to be correct I'll rephrase it, Australian NSW drivers are worse than UK drivers. There cleared that one up. Its the first thing you really notice when you land here so it just has to be true, Coming out of sydney on the freeway to get on the No.1 EVERY driver was indicating right to go round a right hand bend, I even found myself doing it as I thought they must know something I didn't, I've since found out they don't seem to know what the indicator stick is for and they were all probably thinking it was the switch to wind the windows up and down. I'm the muppet for following them like a sheep.

northernbird

I have found that the worst group of drivers here in my neighbourhood are the young women, late teens early 20's. Too fast, too close and very aggressive if you get in their way. In Canada (and I think the US) instead of roundabouts they have a 4 way stop. You stop and take your turn to go. Can you imagine that working here or back in England.

webgum

We're interesting aren't we.!! The roundabout is at the bottom of Marlow Hill next to the Hospital, college and Fire station.

Tom Sawyer

A story I was told about a roundabout in Sylvania Sydney at 5 ways; apparently the RTA built the thing and there was that many crashes on it they had to put traffic lights back in. So now we all get to sit at the lights for 2-3 minutes waiting , waiting , waiting.........
Traffic lights would not be so bad if they were all in sequence, nothing is more annoying than waiting a set of lights for 2 minutes then going 200metres and waiting another 2 minutes Seem to remember that in general UK lights might be all linked to help traffic flow in busier areas. I must go through 25 sets of lights on a 10k trip to work, and if you hit them just wrong ...... so I get to sit at them wasting petrol. And then you read the RTA website about the cross-city tunnel saying it will help me save petrol, pity the rest of their infrastructure does not support their statement.
If there were more roundabouts people would get used to them, at the momment people do not have a clue because they hardly have to use them, in Sydney anyway. Lets have more.
Since moving down here I must say it is traffic lights that has really got to me, thank God for this thread as it has been very theraputic,

huey

I Know this roundabout in Hemel.My dad was working at the Kodak factory on the day they opened the roundabout to traffic.he said all day long you could hear cars crunching into each other.Lol....

Huey

OzTennis

Well, I don't know if it is exclusively an Australian thing, it was reported over the weekend that Paul Gadd aka Gary Glitter used to deliberately drive around roundabouts the wrong (i.e. UK) way in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. I'm not sure what he was doing there but apparently he was trying to recruit young girls for English lessons with a line 'do you wanna be in my gang'?

OzTennis

arkon

So how does going the wrong way round a roundabout attract young girls? Is there some kind of road mister mina that I can do to attract good looking women?

Hutch

I'm going to fit right in, I'm a truly shite driver. However I feel honoured to be in the presence of such amazingly accomplished drivers, maybe some of your incredible skills will rub off on me by the magic of the Internet.

ub40fan

I have lived in many different places, UK, Germany, NI and Hong Kong. I have been driving for almost 20 years and have been involved in 1 accident (not my fault), but I have had a LOT of near misses. The latest one this very morning, involving a lorry in the outside lane of a roundabout in Milton Keynes that wanted to go 3/4 of the way round nearly taking out me and three other cars. When he was honked at he was so unconcerned it was laughable!!! And he was not indicating either. I love MK.

In Berlin there is a roundabout, I think there are only 2, possibly 3 in what used to be West Berlin, and there was at least one crash every day here. It was rumoured that if locals wanted to get thrie car written off they used to spend all day just driving round it in the outside lane and sooner or later someone would hit them.

Also in Berlin they had some lovely wide roads, one was 6 lanes. The inside and outside lanes were used for parking :scared: I kid you not. The second lane on the outside was where people used to stop, put their 4 ways on and get out of the car to nip into the shops.

I think wherever you live you get idiots on the roads, or even on the pavements. You just need to be aware of what is going on around you and drive accordingly. I don't think any nation is any worse than another, perhaps apart from the Belgians. The poster who said that until recently they had no test is quite right. My hubby learnt to drive when he lived there, but he did take a test!

Shirley