UK Driving Test - Dealing With Mini Roundabouts

Dealing with roundabouts is one of the skills many learner drivers find very daunting, and would ng test.rather avoid them if possible, especially on the UK driving test.

I'm going to give a few tips that will help you better understand how to deal with them and hopefully boost your confidence, starting with mini roundabouts.

First of all there are two prerequisite skills which you should have that will go a long way to helping you deal with roundabouts and get you confident for the driving test.

1. Make sure you do not have a problem moving off. If you are consistently stalling the car when moving off, or are having problems remembering to select the 1st gear after stopping before moving off, then get plenty of practise doing this until you are confident with this skill.

2. You should be able to make smooth gear changes down, using block gear changes where necessary. Again practice changing down various gears until you are confident in this area. The key here is you use the brakes to slow down the car and then select the right gear to continue at that speed. Using block gear changes on the driving test will demonstrate to the examiner that you have put extra work into getting to the test standard, as this is an advanced driving skill.

Get these two skills right, and you are half way there when it comes to roundabouts.

You obviously know how to identify a mini roundabout, and know the rule that you only have to give way to traffic on the roundabout approaching from the right. It is absolutely key you know these 2 steps, as it will help you to deal smoothly with mini roundabouts.

You should not bother about signalling to come off a mini-roundabout, they are too small, and you usually don't have enough time to do it while you are steering.

Only signal at a mini roundabout when you are either turning right or left, so if following the road ahead no signals are needed on a mini roundabout.

When your instructor or examiner on the driving test is referring to a mini roundabout, there is a word that is constantly absent 'EXIT'. The instruction will usually be 'at the roundabout I want you to turn right'

Okay now lets deal with the approach and what you need to do when you get to the roundabout.

A roundabout is a junction, and from your knowledge of junctions you will know a junction is either OPEN or CLOSED.

An OPEN junction is one which on the approach, you can see clearly what is approaching from either sides, and in the case of the mini roundabout we are only concerned with what is approaching from the right.

A mini roundabout is usually found in residential or built up areas, and you need to go round them very slowly (avoiding driving over the white central section if possible).

Okay so we are approaching an OPEN mini roundabout and are turning right (it doesn't matter which way we are going, the speed we drive round the roundabout will almost be the same), we check our mirrors, put our signal on, our position in the road does not change, we now look ahead, spot the roundabout, our main concern is traffic approaching from the right, so if there is anything that we think we might give way to, then our first thought is to try and slow the car down enough so that if possible we get to the roundabout just as that car goes past our entrance and we don't have to stop, but follow it if there is a safe gap, this is where smooth gear changes come in.Many people make a habit of stopping at a roundabout during the driving test when they could have just slowed the car enough to give way to the approaching traffic from the right.

If we find out that we do have to stop, then approach the junction in whatever gear you are in, stop at the give way line, put the car in 1st gear, and if stationary for more than about 3 seconds put the hand brake on. You should also always put the hand brake on when you stop if there is a possibility the car will roll back.

Once you have stopped at the roundabout, get that car at the biting point ready to go when you spot a safe gap in the traffic.

Spotting a safe gap requires practise, there are clues that can help though, the speed of cars, their signals, road position and the way the front tyres are pointing all give indications of what a car is about to do. For example a car approaching a mini roundabout from the opposite direction going ahead should not have any indicators on, will probably not slow down a lot, and the front wheels will be straight, so with that in mind you should be ready to proceed once that car is in the middle of the roundabout, and has blocked any traffic that might come across from the right. This skill takes practise, so don't be worried if you don't get it right at the first few attempts, the aim is to be able to do it safely during the UK driving test, so keep working on it.

If you are approaching a CLOSED mini roundabout, where you can't see what is coming from the right, then treat it like a T junction, slow down enough (make sure you also select the right gear) for you to check what is coming from the right before deciding if it is safe to go or not (Look Assess Decide Act).

It is not possible for me to go through all the scenarios you might come across, but the most important thing is spot the roundabout, approach with the right speed to allow you to decide if you can go or not, always aiming for a gap in traffic if possible.

Finally whenever you are a passenger in a car, practice these decision making skills, and see if you do the same thing as who ever was driving, and don't be afraid to ask why they choose to go when they did (if it was done safely, and they did not force another vehicle to slow down for them).

By Shola Ogunlokun