Traffic Circles

I had an interesting, but not entirely unfamiliar experience this weekend. It surprises me that in Umhlanga, where traffic circles are so annoyingly prevelent, that so many of the local drivers don't understand how to use them. I was going around a traffic circle (I was going straight), much in the way that I have always accepted as correct, and some driver came around my outside, trying to go right. He slammed on breaks, missing the collision, but what made it worse, is that he had the nerve to hoot and use some unrated hand signals. Traffic circles are easy in principle, but there seems to me an inconsistent understanding on what do do if there are two lanes in the circle. My rule of thumb: If you are going let or straight, use the outside lane. If you are going straight or right, use the inside lane. If you are going all the way around (back the way you came) then use the lane you are most comfortable with, but you make very sure you don't obstruct any one when you exit, because no one expects this. Also, appropriate use of indicators is just polite.

But, as my girlfriend has revealed to me, there is an online source from a professional traffic adviser, which explains, with the aid of  a picture-video, exactly how to use them. Unfortunately this does not include any advice for the 360, which in my opinion, raises the most chance for a fender bender.

You can check it out at http://www.arrivealive.co.za/pages.aspx?i=2163. This is something which everyone needs to know how to do, even if you are from Gauteng where (based on what I have seen of their traffic circle etiquette) there are probably very few traffic circles.

Anyway, lets open this up for discussion. Post a comment of how you usually handle the 2-lane daemon (it should be automatic after all).