And I knew I'd seen this somewhere, I think though from 2010. A European Parliament question -
"While in Austria and Germany, for example, priority to vehicles coming from the right (‘priorité à droite’) has mostly been abolished, and in Spain, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland the rule is that traffic on the roundabout has priority, in France — where half the roundabouts in the world are apparently located — it is vehicles entering the roundabout which have priority."
I've driven in France a lot and can't remember it being like this though.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo...0-4571_EN.html

France rules about priority to the right still apply on many rural roads and like you, I've never seen it that way on main road roundabouts! As with the ever sensible Dutch, most situations are controlled by give way and stop signs and drivers work to that. My beef with the DGT is that they have made a complete nonsense of driving behaviour once you are in the roundabout and is so different to other countries.

Agreed.

Perhaps I'm a bit out of touch with UK driving, having left in 2009, but I've always felt that British driving was way better than Spanish. I find here there is less "gentlemanly" conduct, such as when a car wishes to enter the motorway, they tend to insist on entering at all costs by accelerating and then cutting you up in your lane.
As for tailgating, it's everywhere. Even some lorries do it.
But maybe British driving has worsened too. I'll find out come September.
PS: if you don't already read it, then the DGT magazine "Seguridad Vial" is excellent & free!

Down my part of the world many drivers drive to the end of the slip road STOP, Then signal right and meander into the motorway.

Thanks for that link Mark604, I finally got to read it today. When something takes that many words to explain, you know it isn't intuitive!! Wonder what the DGT manual would look like for Swindon's Magic Roundabout?

That's a nightmare. Remind me never to go there. The road planners are having a laugh.

That's everyones reaction when they see it. Surprisingly, it has recently celebrated 60 years in service and has a very good safety record. Can't see it working in Spain though!

I wonder what percentage of drivers who come a cropper on roundabouts are Spanish, a pretty small number would be my guess and fair few of those very likely victims of foreign drivers.

Typical 'British way = good - Johnny foreigner way = bad!' mentality.

When in Rome.......!

As someone from Swindon originally, It becomes normal pretty quickly, still easy to spot the out of towners using it.

This isn´t about nationalities, it´s about systems, and the roundabout system is different to the rest of Europe. I don´t know of any other country where you can enter into a roundabout on the right hand lane, do a complete 360 around it using just the outside lane, without using indicators, and leave by any exit you choose or even do another 360 if you've got the petrol left, and everyone else has to make way for you, and finally have the approval of the DGT for your driving. That isn´t anti-Spanish, it's just a bad system. It is what it is, and we have to live with it. I still don't think it is good!

EDIT: I'll vote for the system in Portugal, where the very simple rule is "if you are in the right hand lane you MUST take the next exit.". It's so simple.

I've never seen a foreign car have a near miss on a roundabout, only Spanish cars - and in places rental cars usually aren't.

Agreed. In Santander the only foreign cars are usually British and only twice a week when the ferry comes in. Can't recall any of the hundreds of accidents that have happened on the S20 or S10 roundabouts involving anything other than a Spanish driver. I stress though, that is not against the Spanish. It is just, in my opinion, due to the fatally flawed DGT protocol on roundabouts in Spain. The mess started around 30 years ago when roundabouts first became mainstream, and has been like an open wound ever since on which they keep trying to use sticking plasters!

A bit of history (if anyone is interested!)

I first started driving in Spain in 1979, and lived in Barcelona from 82 to 85. In those days there were very few motorways, and journeys to Madrid etc on the national roads like the N1 and N2 were single carriageway, with occasional hard shoulders. Road intersections on these major roads were largely traffic light controlled, and roundabouts were scarce. So you would be on the N2 say, doing 100 - 120kph and then have to slow down and stop for a red light. This meant a lot of nose to tail shunts and a lot of high speed traffic light jumping took place. The road accidents at the intersections were frequent, always severe and often fatal.

Roundabouts really started to be frequent around the late 80s early 90s and as more roundabouts started to appear on the main roads, so did the first DGT protocols with them. It's worth commenting that as late as 1990 the ONLY reference to a "Glorieta" in the whole of the of the Highway Code was to say "Traffic on a roundabout has priority over traffic trying to enter onto it!". That's it! There wasn't anything else.

At first, the roundabouts were on roads that were mainly single carriageway, and the priority to the right protocol on roundabouts was relatively comfortable. As traffic increased, roads and roundabouts progressively became multi carriageway, and this is where the flaws in the protocol really became a problem. However, as the roundabouts had been successful at reducing fatalities by making everyone go slower through the intersections, the protocol was modified again and again, with the DGT attempting to adapt it to suit.

For the last 30 years, the DGT have been trying to adapt to suit modern road designs and get their message out to drivers. All of those diagrams, explanations and campaigns have only been around surprisingly recently. As late as 2017, they themselves declared that "75% of drivers do not know how to use roundabouts".

Finally, I offer the sage words of my great friend, who said to me shortly after arriving in Spain, "driving here is simple, just assume everyone else is trying to kill you, and you'll be fine!"

Thanks rbs - and love the last sentence.

I have been driving here for 23 years and have seen some 'close ones' on roundabouts of which there were virtually none when I started here but over the years they have grown in huge numbers as the road network has increased...I know Spaniards from Madrid and they hate driving down here in the Alicante province with our dreaded roundabouts because they don't really have them in Madrid.