Roundabout, left hand lane for right turn, follow the crowd?
Discussion
My Daughter, a reasonably new driver has this double roundabout on her commute on the way home.
roundabouts
On the 1st roundabout as taught, she goes around in the right hand lane, however everyone else uses the left hand lane. I've seen the dashcam footage and every car in the left hand lane was doing that right turn.
As the road on exit is a dual carriage way, she manages to exit ok, but has to join it on the right hand lane because of all the cars going around in the left lane.
The problem then is that she has to get into the left lane to get onto the A1(M), which is tricky because there is only a short distance to do it, the left lane is busy, the cars in it are happy to undertake, and its dark.
Would it be safer for her just to follow the crowd and go around in the left lane ?
roundabouts
On the 1st roundabout as taught, she goes around in the right hand lane, however everyone else uses the left hand lane. I've seen the dashcam footage and every car in the left hand lane was doing that right turn.
As the road on exit is a dual carriage way, she manages to exit ok, but has to join it on the right hand lane because of all the cars going around in the left lane.
The problem then is that she has to get into the left lane to get onto the A1(M), which is tricky because there is only a short distance to do it, the left lane is busy, the cars in it are happy to undertake, and its dark.
Would it be safer for her just to follow the crowd and go around in the left lane ?
My Daughter did have a slight conflict which is what sort of led me to bring this up.
She left the 1st roundabout with a reasonable lead on a Mercedes (about 4 car lengths), accelerated a little to increase the gap even more and then went to to move left to the left lane only to find the Mercedes had also accelerated into her blind spot, He beeped her, drew parallel with her, gave her a dirty look, and then shot off past her and also passed the exit she was aiming for leaving her shaken for the rest of the journey.
She left the 1st roundabout with a reasonable lead on a Mercedes (about 4 car lengths), accelerated a little to increase the gap even more and then went to to move left to the left lane only to find the Mercedes had also accelerated into her blind spot, He beeped her, drew parallel with her, gave her a dirty look, and then shot off past her and also passed the exit she was aiming for leaving her shaken for the rest of the journey.
Pica-Pica said:
She has to shrug those things off. I would have indicated and pulled left when the Merc was still visible in left mirror. (I am not sure about the ‘only to find’ bit, that sounds like being caught unaware that the Merc had moved closer)
She hasn't been driving long and it was dark, but she should probably have kept better track of the Merc.Checking the footage again, she has a reasonable head start on entering the roundabout, accelerates a bit in an attempt to increase her lead and is probably looking forward at this time. By the time she goes to leave on the 3rd exit and check her side mirror,the Merc had caught up with her and was already in her blind spot so she didn't see anything in her side mirror and assumed the left lane was clear.. Also she was already indicating left to leave the roundabout so her intention to change lane just after leaving the roundabout wouldn't have been clear.
Anyway valuable lesson for her on taking account of undertakers, and why she should never do it herself.
Edited by stevedh on Thursday 14th November 11:40
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