I Don’t Understand Roundabouts, What Can I Do?

When it comes to mastering roundabouts – perseverance is the most needed ingredient. Time and practice will allow you to develop your skills to become more equipped with dealing with them and ultimately mastering them.

There is no set time period to which you are expected to master roundabouts. However, here is a guide to help you improve your training and understanding. When following this guide, be honest with your answers as you work through this guide.

Do You Really Understand The Concept of Roundabouts?

When it comes to roundabouts, do you really understand their purpose? Understanding their purpose will equip you with the skills needed to be able to deal with them better. To get a better understanding – you can read our roundabout guide . Once you have read this guide you should make sure you watch any relateable videos. Sometimes visual aids can help improve your understanding if articles do not.

Have You Mastered Smaller Roundabouts?

When it comes to roundabouts it is important to start at the beginning and master little steps. These steps lead to more advanced steps. Practice with smaller roundabouts such as mini roundabouts and small residential roundabouts. Practice left turns, followed by travelling ahead and then work on turning right. Once you have built up this practice you will need to analyse if there are still some elements that you may struggle with. Here is a quick break down.

1. Are you checking your mirrors on the approach?
2. Are you applying a signal on the approach?
3. Are you positioning the vehicle to the left or the right on the approach?
4. Are you braking in good time?
5. Are you progressively braking and approaching the roundabout at a steady speed which allows you enough time to observe the roundabout correctly and make decisions?
6. Are you observing correctly, and judging where other vehicles are heading?
7. Are you checking the road position of other vehicles and looking at their signals?
8. Are you applying the MSM routine on exit? Is this consistent?

When understanding what part of roundabouts you struggle with, it is easier to pinpoint which aspect you will need to practice on with the guidance of your trainer or parent trainer. Once you have narrowed down which parts you struggle with, you will be able to take responsibility for this and your attention will focus on this element. After each practice roundabout, you should aim to analyse your driving and continue to another roundabout.

Here are some questions you can think about

1. What area can you improve
2. Which area are you fully responsible for?
3. Which area do you need guidance with?
4. Which area do you want more practice with?

Taking On More Responsibility

As you continue with your practice sessions it is important to take on responsibility for the little steps you master. Bit by bit, you will be able to see and identify which areas of ‘dealing with roundabouts’ you are genuinely struggling with. Many learners put up barriers and just ‘refuse’ to progress mentally, as they condition themselves to just ‘not like roundabouts’.

It is important this does NOT happen with yourself. When practising roundabouts, everyone should know their role. For example, your trainer will guide you on the approach, and you will take responsibility (not need input) when it comes to emerging onto the roundabout and navigating yourself around it. Here are a few examples:

1. The trainer guides you through the MSPSL routine on the approach – you, take on the responsibility of emerging.
2. You take on the responsibility of the MSPSL routine on the approach – your trainer guides you through the emerging progress.
3. You take on the responsibility of the mirrors and signal on the approach – your trainer will guide you with the position, speed and braking on the approach. You then take back responsibility for emerging and completing the roundabout, and so on.

Advancing Onto Complex Roundabouts

After you have mastered basic roundabouts, then you can move on to more complex roundabouts such as traffic light controlled roundabouts and multi-lane roundabouts. Again, practice and time are needed to allow your self-time to be able to learn and master them. Again, you should plan your roundabouts, and even your route prior to your training session, and again assign responsibility to each person’s role in the exercise.

Once you start to take more control and gain more experience, bit by bit, you will improve and gain more confidence when it comes to mastering roundabouts. Here are some useful training tips to help you master roundabouts.

1. Practice until you become confident with smaller roundabouts
2. Once you have mastered smaller roundabouts, move onto busier roundabouts
3. Once you are more confident with busier roundabouts, start practicing on larger roundabouts with more exits.
4. Once you have more confidence when turning left and ahead, practice more right turns.
5. Practice checking blind spots when changing lanes on roundabouts
6. Once you are more confident with roundabout lanes, try practicing with roundabouts with traffic lights
7. Once you are much more confident, analyse your skills and find key areas of even more improvement.
8. Once you are much more confident practice complex roundabouts in unfamiliar places. Practice reading more and more road signs on the approach and following roundabout lanes.
9. You should continuously check your standards and identify key areas for improvement. Remember you can always improve your driving regardless of how good you may be.