F***wits at roundabouts

[Calaber]

At the end of my road is a major roundabout. The speed limit in our street is 50kph and the cross road, a major regional distributor, is a four lane 70kph road.

Our roundabout is the first one you encounter on Wyong Road after leaving the F3 freeway, which has a 110kph limit. The roundabout is at the bottom of about a half kilometer incline. This tends to mean that traffic leaving the freeway is still in "F3 mode" and instead of approaching the roundabout at 70, they are more likely to be doing 80 or 90.

For us to enter the roundabout, we not only have these people coming from our right at high speed, our vision is extremely limited by the decorative entryways developers place at the entry to residential development areas. In other words, we don't have much time to see, estimate speed and make a safe entry to the roundabout. It's a recipe for death.

Crossing from the other direction, to enter our street, the same problem exists, because the idiots won't slow down. They think they have the speed to cross in front of you, even if you are already on the roundabout.

Well, last week, I struck two cretins side by side coming from my left. I was half way across the intersection and about to enter my street, indicator working. The first (a p plater, of course!), who was in the kerbside lane, crossed in front of me, forcing me to brake to avoid him. The second, the car beside him in the median lane, decided that I had already gone through, so she decided to go through too. Trouble is, I had stopped for the other f***wit, so I was right in front of her.

She realised her mistake at the last second and swung hard left to avoid me, while I accellerated hard to the right. Our cars actually brushed, with only a polish needced to remove the paint on my side mouldings.

The police don't pay enough attention to traffic behaviour at roundabouts and this is one where they could set up camp and book nit wits all day long. Too much policicing emphasis on speeding (particularly over holidays), not enough on intersections.

Someone will die at this intersection. It won't be me - I have had enough scares to be extremely cautious every time I use the roundabout. But the behaviour of Central Coast drivers of all ages at roundabouts is beyond description.

[minux]

Calaber, once again it shows that driver education in Australia is a joke. The government are hell bent on making people believe that hoons and speeding are the only issues on our road. Sadly, neither of these are hardly an issue, driver education and poor policing of this education is what the problem is. Sounds like you had some pretty lucky escapes.

[Calaber]

Minux

Totally agree with you. Our local council seems to think that roundabouts are the solution to a multitude of traffic issues, but the local population seems to think they are minor interruptions to their journey which only requires a slight deviation of the steering wheel to negotiate, not a tool for safe traffic management.

[I drive a VL Commodore]

Why is there a roundabout on a 70kph distributor anyway? That's just asking for trouble.

Roundabouts are an inexpensive solution to slowing traffic on residential and other minor roads and occasionally intermediate roads up to 60kph. Add more lanes and higher speeds and things just get stupid.

And lets not forget the deluded faggots who think plodding pretty flowers and shit right in the middle of the ****en things is a good idea.

Send some angry letters to your local government about the issue. If you're serious set up camp at the roundabout with a camera during peak traffic and record all dangerous activity and wing that off with your letter.

Although if your local is like my local it will take 3 or more serious accidents before the area is fixed. It took my car, two others' and one persons' life before they fixed a particular blackspot near my place.

[needwork2-4fillhabbit]

Or you could get out one night gorilla gardner style and paint some thick white rumble strips on the road. A bit of work but council sucks.

[mulligan-can]

Roundabouts are one of my biggest pet hates. Seriously. I cannot stand the blatant disregard that most people seem to have towards the road laws when using them. Especially when it comes to indicating.

Councils/Road authorities are often even more negligent with regard to them. They are forever putting plants/etc on them restricting visibility.

I feel you pain bro.

[Sabbath']

Councils seem to think that putting physical lumps in the road will curb a speed problem, when other measures could be safer, and more effective.

Case in point:

On Haverbrack Drive in Mulgrave they've set up "Esses" to slow traffic down, and to try to stop the amount of through traffic from Police Road to Wellington Road. The speed limit down the road was 60. It's a wide 2 lane road, and because of the nature of it, it wasnt uncommon for people to be doing atleast 80 through it. So the first step was to simply reduce the speed limit.

When that didnt work, the Esses went in. But the stupid thing is, they've put them in in such a way, that you can comfortably go through them at 50, and even up to 55 is possible on the downhill sections. They have done NOTHING to stop the speeding problem as a whole because anybody who drives the road regularly knows how to go around them. It just causes a traffic hazard when granny may goes around them at 5km/h because she cant negotiate the turn, or, when people on the side roads think you're going to slow down more so they pull out in front of you.

[Pub247]

Yeah i like roundabouts I think in theory theyre much better than traffic lights and they should keep traffic flowing better. Anyone who has been or lived at noosa like me would know how well the system works noosa has/had only 1 traffic light in the whole town out the front of the school.
Problem is some people just dont care about others drivers or just fail to grasp the concept of a roundabout its not hard.
I had a close one the other week on the notorious thompson road roundabout because some ******** decided not to indicate to tell me he was going right instead of straight ahead

[vsl67]

Some of the roundbouts are poorly designed with landscaping to block views throwen in and add the idiot driver factor to this equals trouble

Other round abouts are worse than others with exits/entries points to close together this is a bad problem with the two lane roundabouts that dont have the arrows painted on the road

[System]

i treat every round about like an intersection- give way to your right, indicate RIGHT if you are going right, indicate LEFT if you are going left- and straight ahead, no indicator, none of thie BS "first right indicator, then when half way round left indicator to go straight".... that only confuses people.

I dont see how people cannot grasp how to go through a round about?

[vsl67]

I dont think people are confused at roundabouts they just totaly oblivious to anything thats going on around them while driving

I can remember seening a few 4wd drives on there sides on round abouts, thinking they deserve that for speeding through

[Stressball]

i treat every round about like an intersection- give way to your right, indicate RIGHT if you are going right, indicate LEFT if you are going left- and straight ahead, no indicator, none of thie BS "first right indicator, then when half way round left indicator to go straight".... that only confuses people.

I dont see how people cannot grasp how to go through a round about?

Left indicator for left turn, no indicator for straight through, right indicator for right turn/u-turn. In any case though, you should indicate left just before your exit. Out of curiosity, do you do that? It's just that I know a lot of people who think they know the rules of roundabouts, but ultimately don't follow that one.

Also, giving way to right, at least in QLD, is not the technical law on roundabouts. Technically the law up here at least, is to give way to traffic already on the roundabout.

So, say you have cars entering at Exits 1 and 2, and they both ultimately end up in the same place on the roundabout at the same time. Right of way goes to whoever was on that roundabout first, not whoever entered from Exit 1. Certainly a rare situation, depending on distance between the exits and the speeds of the cars.

[Zeussy]

Why is there a roundabout on a 70kph distributor anyway? That's just asking for trouble.

Thers about 15 of them, if not more, if you follow that road out to the entrance, all in about a 10km? stretch of road.....

Its a pain commuting out to work going that way, get up to speed - slow down for a round about - get u to speed etc... etc...

Dual lane all the way.. 70km/hr speed limit - some of it used to be 80km/hr (a while ago) im pretty sure..

[Calaber]

Why is there a roundabout on a 70kph distributor anyway? That's just asking for trouble.

Roundabouts are an inexpensive solution to slowing traffic on residential and other minor roads and occasionally intermediate roads up to 60kph. Add more lanes and higher speeds and things just get stupid.

And lets not forget the deluded faggots who think plodding pretty flowers and shit right in the middle of the ****en things is a good idea.

Send some angry letters to your local government about the issue. If you're serious set up camp at the roundabout with a camera during peak traffic and record all dangerous activity and wing that off with your letter.

Although if your local is like my local it will take 3 or more serious accidents before the area is fixed. It took my car, two others' and one persons' life before they fixed a particular blackspot near my place.

Zeussy almost got it right. Believe it or not, there are 13 roundabouts over about a nine kilometre stretch of road, which is 70kph for most of its length! A couple of school zones, ones shopping centre, three roundabouts at least that don't work as they should because of the volumes of traffic from side roads holding up the main road.....Wyong Road used to be a nice piece of roadway but as Zeussy said, it's a pain in the arse these days because of the number of bloody roundabouts. And the idiots treat every one the same way.

[Zeussy]

Ohh sorry 13 round abouts and 9 kms of road,

but if you go the extra kay up the road towards The Shelly Beach Carpark, there is two more roundabouts!!

[Calaber]

Yeah, thought of them just after posting. Only had in mind from the freeway to The Entrance Road. Thanks. Just makes it a little bit worse. Friggin' road.

[acarmody]

I can't stand the people who put on right indicators to go straight ahead. Theres this one particular roundabout out the back of Chermside where every entrance is 2 lanes and where I enter both lanes can go straight ahead. I'm usually on the inside lane usually parrell to the car next to me who enters at the exact same time, even though they are going straight ahead they put their right indicator on, I usually use the brakes and back off because I can't be sure thier not 100% retarded and will actually turn right.

Left for left, right for right, and none for straight ahead. Though I do use my left indicator to signal exiting, always after I've passed the last exit.

[Zeussy]

lol Calaber, its a prick of a road hey...

and like a few people have said, blinkers... why dont people know how to use them?
This one roundabout in particular which is closer to my home, north wyong/up past the golf club - the new one - people indicate to go straight through, and dont indicate to turn?? WTF!! nearly had a few bingles there, coming southbound? someone slaps the indicator on at the last minute as they are already half way through a turn... so I slam on the brakes = girlfirend swearing, sitting up on the dash just about!

[Grennan]

Ha I remember that road from when I used to live in Tuggerah. Some may have heard of the Thompsons Rd roundabouts here in SE Vic, its much the same dual lanes I think its 80 or 100 k's Ive forgotten and theres a few roundabouts thrown around the place. Its a nightmare of a road during the day, people fly through it without any regard for signaling, but from experience Wyong Road is far worse

[VS Omega]

Our council many (20+) years ago, not predicting the development beyond where we're living thought round abouts were the best thing ever, but due to the surge in volumes of traffic which weren't anticipated have had to rip them up and replace them with traffic light intersections (causing great delays while it was being done).

I agree with the whole topic of people not knowing how to drive, but where I am there's a lot of people with major attitude problems that pull out right in front of me... I try to accelerate into them, wouldn't actually hit them but I always think to myself "that'd show them"

[SSZ Ute]

Also, giving way to right, at least in QLD, is not the technical law on roundabouts. Technically the law up here at least, is to give way to traffic already on the roundabout.

Same goes in NSW.
It is amazing how many times that I am stopped at the roundabout and the car to my right is bearing down on me barely even slowing down. They think that I have to give way to my right when in fact I can enter the roundabout first and they have to give way to me. I love it how trucks think that hey have right of way everywhere too. I like to test out their knowledge of the road rules by doing the above.

http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/rulesregul...outs_guide.pdf

[f1tzy]

I can't stand the people who put on right indicators to go straight ahead. Theres this one particular roundabout out the back of Chermside where every entrance is 2 lanes and where I enter both lanes can go straight ahead. I'm usually on the inside lane usually parrell to the car next to me who enters at the exact same time, even though they are going straight ahead they put their right indicator on, I usually use the brakes and back off because I can't be sure thier not 100% retarded and will actually turn right.

Left for left, right for right, and none for straight ahead. Though I do use my left indicator to signal exiting, always after I've passed the last exit.

I assume your talking about that shitty ****in roundabout that has the ford dealership on the middle of it?

[Calaber]

A few of you have referred to the problem of traffic on your right refusing to acknowledge your right of way as you have already entered, or have reached the roundabout, before them.

As I said, in this state at least, there is far too much emphasis on policing speeding, and far too little emphasis given to policing roundabouts.

If the cops would just have the occasional blitz on mongrels who refuse to play the gam properly at roundabouts, the word would start to sink in, but all the governments can do is tell us slow down, slow down, slow down - speed kills.

Yeah, so does being t-boned on roundabouts.....

[f1tzy]

As stated by others, my biggest issue is the lack of proper indication and when that is combined with flying through the roundabouts at 1million mph really ****s things up. They indicate to leave before your exit so you start to move out then they come flying around past you nearly cleaning you up and then abuse you for it. Shits me to tears the amount of close calls like that iv'e had

[undar8ed1]

I assume your talking about that shitty ****in roundabout that has the ford dealership on the middle of it?

WHAT inside the actual roundabout, or do you mean on the border?