Roundabouts can be quite a challenging topic at first. Some might think that starting with smaller “mini roundabouts” is a good place to start, although smaller roundabouts give you less time to think and therefore can be quite overwhelming.

We’ll likely start with small quieter “standard” roundabouts, these will give us an opportunity to practise and more time to think as the traffic can be more spaced out.

When negotiating roundabouts, we can break them down into four stages to make it easier to learn and manage:

Approaching
Joining
Transiting
Exiting

At first, your instructor can take the most of the workload from you, allowing you to learn roundabouts in bite size stages. Over time, you’ll be able manage more responsibility as you progress

Roundabouts - Approaching

Each road that joins a roundabout is called an exit.

When approaching a roundabout your instructor will tell you which exit we are aiming for.

“take the first exit, to the left”

“take the second exit, straight ahead”

“take the third exit, to the right”

As you approach a roundabout, you’ll see a give way line, we must give way to traffic approaching from the right.

We must drive clockwise around a roundabout. Never turn immediately right onto a roundabout, you will be driving into oncoming traffic!

When approaching a roundabout, we can use the same routine that we have been using when approaching turns or emerging at a T junctions. MSPSL.

If we want to take the first exit to the left, we would check our interior & left mirror, signal left and position ourselves to the left. We then need to adjust our speed, look to the left to decide if we can go or need to wait. The diagram below illustrates this.

If we want take the second exit, going straight ahead, we will also check our interior & left mirror on approach, but we don’t need to signal, we also position ourselves on the left.

If we want to take the third exit to the right, we check our interior & right mirror, signal to the right and position ourselves to the right. We also use this approach routine if we need to take the fourth exit (making a full turn).

These are the default approach rules when driving towards a roundabout, the exception being if signs or road markings tell us to do something other than follow the default rules.

It is important to identify as soon as possible if a roundabout is coming up. We can do this by looking out for warning signs and roundabout diagrams showing destinations. We next ask ourselves "Are there any signs on approach or arrows on the road to tell us to do something different than follow the default rules".

Here are some examples of signs on approach, telling us to do something other than the default rules.

The signs & road markings tell us to use the left lane to turn left and to use the right lane to go straight ahead or right.

Another factor that may change our approach lane position is “the 12 o’clock rule”.

Looking at this sign on approach, if we wanted to take the second exit towards Wimborne, it doesn’t quite line up straight with our approach road. If we imagine the roundabout like a clockface, we should treat any exits after 12 o’clock as we would if turning to the right. Right mirror check, right signal and approach in the right lane, the exception being, if signs or lane markings tell us otherwise.

Roundabouts - Joining

Once we have practised approaching and using MSPSL to do this safely, our next job is to join the roundabout.

Similar to judging suitable gaps when emerging at busier T junctions, this does take time to get confident making the right decision. Your instructor will help you decide until you feel confident doing this independently.

We are mainly looking to the right (red bubble), but also need to try to glance at traffic coming from the other side of the roundabout (yellow bubble).

Once we have assessed the situation we can decide if to go or to stop. If we are going, we can select 2nd gear, if we need to stop and wait, we can select 1st gear.

We will learn to observe the traffic to the right and judge if they are waiting for something to their right this will give us an opportunity to join. When another vehicle is crossing their path and exiting at the junction after them, we call this a "blocker" , this could give us a nice gap to join the roundabout.

Just remember, you’ll need a bigger gap than an experienced driver, there’s no rules on how long we need to wait.

If we decide to go, we need to take one last glace to the right, our "life saver check". Things can change very quickly at roundabouts and we must be ready to adapt.

Only pull onto a roundabout when it’s safe and …… if you don’t know, don’t go!

Tip: If we start looking to the right as soon as possible, we can get a feel for the traffic flow before we get to the roundabout. This will give us a head start when assessing whether to give way or keep going. 

Roundabouts - Transiting

Once we have made the decision to join the roundabout, we can turn our attention to safely transiting towards our exit.

If the roundabout has lane markings, we MUST keep in our lane.

Some roundabouts will not have markings, so we need to imagine they are there. 

Not keeping good lane discipline on roundabouts can be dangerous and could lead to a collision.

We can use the inside and outside kerbs or road markings to help guide us through and maintain good lane discipline.

Favouring the outside kerb or aiming towards it will help us stay to the left.

Hugging the right or central kerb will help us stay right.

We can take a quick glance to our right and ask ourselves “Is there space there for another car?”

Roundabouts - Exiting

When we exit a roundabout, we need to do two things to ensure it is done safely:

We check our left mirror to see if it’s safe to turn off and then signal to the left to let other road users know what we are intend to do.

The timing of these two things is important. As we pass the exit before the one we want to take, we should check our left mirror to see if it’s safe to turn off to the left and exit. As we are turning off to the left, we also put on a left signal.

Once we have exited the roundabout, if the road ahead is clear, we need to check that it’s safe to speed up by checking our interior and right mirror to see if anything is overtaking us.