Just witnessed an accident 3838

Arif Khokar

Sorry, forgot for a moment that you drive on the wrong side of the road ;) Here's the rules in NZ where we drive on the left and go clockwise around roundabouts:

- Signal right when entering the roundabout if you're going to take an exit further than 180 degrees around from where you entered. - Signal left when you pbutt the last exit before yours. - If you are not on the roundabout, you must yield to traffic already on it, AND traffic entering from the next entry before yours.

The idea is to maximise traffic flow by letting other people waiting to enter the roundabout, know whether or not you are going to get in their way.

Actually I think the first rule is "signal right if you aren't taking the first exit" in the lawbook, but most people do it as I described because it's a bit weird to signal right when you are going straight on a small roundabout.

On large roundabouts, signalling is important. I used to live near a monster one (it had 3 lanes and 6 exits), it was very difficult to navigate safely :)

I should have been more clear; there was no yield sign there. People would just stop partway through the lane where they expected the yield sign to be (or usually, a few metres further on).

I'm talking about when you are approaching a roundabout, and there's a guy who is also approaching the next entry around. Often he will see you coming but enter the roundabout anyway, because he buttumes you're going to slow down and check for traffic.

Also I see a lot of timidity. Suppose two people are both stopped at the yield signs. Now, the person on the later entry knows he must yield to the other guy. But, if they both went then they would miss each other by a long way so it isn't even a yield situation. Nevertheless, the later entry guy often enables.