What offence was stipulated on the FPN Peter D?
dvd
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This is probably down to two factors. Intent and attitude. Obviously the raison d'etere of the mini roundabout is to make you slow down and manoeuvere around them. If the intent is to straight line it, especially in an agressive manner, you are driving in a potentially hazardous way. If you then compound the offence by being a bit mouthy, well....(shrugs shoulders)
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let me be the last to let you down....
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Are these blobs meant to slow the traffic down? They normally replace intersections of a minor and major road, which at certain times of day can leave traffic backed up on the minor one. The mini-roundabouts are meant to speed up traffic flow by giving cars on the minor road opportunities to cross. You can't sensibly just blind across (as you could on the major road before these things were installed).
BazzaBear: you are obviously serious and kindly, but I really think it's a bit over-severe to accuse someone of 'bad driving' if a wheel runs over one of these things. If they weren't meant to be run over they'd have huge tyre-damaging kerbs.
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Just to bring another view to the party, yes I hate it when people drive straight across but it is impossible to turn right at one near us without touching the white "blob". I don't mean impossible when driving quick, I mean impossible from a stop not to touch it.
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one near me was a raised circular hump when first installed but caused so much furore in the local press that it was dug up and replaced with a flat painted disc specifically to allow driving straight over. Bit of a conflict with my earlier Highway Code contribution...
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I've never yet found a mini round about that I couldn't avoid driving over.
Not even near us, Adam !
Go on, get out of the car...
www.mikes-walks.co.uk
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Upholland by the pie shop Mike.
And I don't mean drive over - I mean touch slightly with a wheel!
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I understood that these painted areas, together with hatched markings, should be treated as if they were raised, areas within the highway.
VB
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Would that constitute a dual carriageway then?
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BazzaBear: you are obviously serious and kindly, but I really think it's a bit over-severe to accuse someone of 'bad driving' if a wheel runs over one of these things. If they weren't meant to be run over they'd have huge tyre-damaging kerbs.
Serious? I don't often get accused of that!
I haven't made myself clear, I am not accusing of bad driving merely because a wheel hit the white bit. I am accusing of bad driving because it do so in such a way as to cause a policeman to pull the man over.
Unlike many on here, I happen to generally trust in our police force, and I reckon that since he was pulled, the vastly higher chance is that he was driving like an idiot, if the alternative is that the nasty, corrupt policeman just wanted to get his claws into an innocent member of the public.
As you've said higher up, some require you to mount the white dot, but I doubt this was one of those cases.
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Without being there I don't want to be critical, if the driver did this recklessly, going a bit too fast and in such a way as to cause a surprise to another road user then I agree wth the Police. If it was a deserted roundabout, they should complain.
I wish the Police would deal with people who don't signal when appropriate or use the proper lane on a roundabout.
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Heh, they should try that on the roundabout of roundabouts in Hemel. Its brilliant to see how many people don't/won't use the right lanes for the direction they want to go to.
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Of course I meant serious in the best possible way, BB, nothing heavy. Of course I don't think people should drive in an obtrusively pushy way over mini-roundabouts or anywhere else. That said, policemen vary, and a policeman on foot can get a road situation a bit wrong. Of course I am always polite and rational when pulled, seldom these days alhamdulillah, and the officers are usually the same although I've met some sticky little chaps in my time.
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"I've never yet found a mini round about that I couldn't avoid driving over."
Then try the one in Newcastle Emlyn, Carmarthenshire, approaching from the north, heading the bridge.
The white blob is massively off-centre, and I have never yet watched any vehicle even attempt to avoid it.
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Heh, they should try that on the roundabout of roundabouts in Hemel. Its brilliant to see how many people don't/won't use the right lanes for the direction they want to go to.
Worst roundabout in the world for this: Where the A34 meets the A500 in Talke, outside Stoke.
For some reason all the Stokians coming up off the A500 believe that they should use the left hand lane to take the exit on the far right. It's like some kind of racial or cultural ingrained memory or something.
Some of them even beep and gesture angrily if anyone dares use the right hand lane to turn right.
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Look. Mini roundabouts are installed where ordinary road junctions are considered to have become too congested or are too dangerous due to the volume of today's traffic.
As such, they usually installed without much further modification in the vicinity and are delineated by either painting a flat circular patch or constructing a slightly domed area.
In this manifestation, it is often virtually impossible, at a reasonable speed, to negotiate these without touching the whitened areas that mark out these roundabouts.
Surely they are there to indicate the roundabout paradigm and the fact that some vehicles/drivers may touch them with their tyres shoud not make it an illegal action.
I'm not advocating reckless driving i.e. driving across them but with a bit of care, by the driver of a car or small van etc. then they could negotiated without encroaching too much on the marked out area.
How on earth can it be a crime to touch these modern day constructions?
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I like to drive around large, empty(ish) roundabouts fast enough to make the tyres squeal. Always wind the window down a crack on the approach so I can hear it better. Wifey shakes head in dispair.
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The bus goes over the blob near us every time. If it's an offence for a car then it must be an offence for a bus .......?
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IanS
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The bus goes over the blob near us every time. If it's an offence for a car then it must be an offence for a bus .......? _______ IanS
No it isn't. Read higher up the thread for the rules in place.
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There is a mini roundabout in Chesterfield on a Y junction so tight that I'd to do a 3 point turn to get off the roundabout at my chosen exit. Luckily not much traffic.
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I wasna fu but just had plenty.
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Thanks BazzaB - noted.
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IanS
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The term mini roundabout covers a variety of structures. Some are just paint, others are small versions of the full size jobbie. The OP does not say what sort his colleague was nicked on, neither is there a response to DVD's request for the offence code. Against that background speculation is pointless.
Recipient of FPN can go to Mags and defend if he's not guilty. On the other hand most of us, if caught, fall in the trap of feeling hard done by 'cos the coppers should be out catching muggers or at least folks whose driving is even worse.
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Slight topic drift here, but does anyone know the roundabout complex on the edge of Colchester, a cluster of roundabouts, where you find yourself apparently going round the wrong side of some of them? It works brilliantly but must faze some people.
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Came across the Colchester complex a few years back. It certainly "fazed" me!
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IanS
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Came across the Colchester complex a few years back. It certainly "fazed" me!
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Try this one on Google earth
A40 M40 at Uxbridge
Pretty confusing for most but even more of a challenge on Google Earth
51 33 40.20 N 0 29 45 20 W
or
At Hatton Cross Heathrow
51 28 04.24 N 0 25 23.88 W
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"I like to drive around large, empty(ish) roundabouts fast enough to make the tyres squeal. Always wind the window down a crack on the approach so I can hear it better. Wifey shakes head in dispair."
My brother (daft young blighter, only 71) found this merit in a Cinquecento Sport - owing to the narrow track, he could shake off characters in roundabouts which he could straight line but they could not.
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That's what small Fiats are for, and good at.
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It is law but it's stupid law because of the amount of damage it caused to tyres, suspension components and driveshafts. If there is no other traffic, it's far more sensible and efficient to drive straight over the blob. But illegal. So you have to do something stupid that damages your car to remain within the law. HJ
I don't get it. Driving around a mini-roundabout on a level road surfact damages the car? Yet going over the raised blob in the middle doesn't? Isn't the raised blob just like a small speed cushion - which everybody seems to hate...
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It is law but it's stupid law because of the amount of damage it caused to tyres, suspension components and driveshafts. If there is no other traffic, it's far more sensible and efficient to drive straight over the blob. But illegal. So you have to do something stupid that damages your car to remain within the law. HJ
Actually HJ some of these things are so placed near me that you should really go entirely the wrong side of them to describe the sort of curve the road layout imposes. Saw a guy on a pushbike do it not half an hour ago, although as a result of this thread I was annoying myself by trying to go round them... it won't last I hope.
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In response to Aprilia, no it isn't. Take a look at both next time you are out. Mini roundabouts are very gently raised. Speed cushions have sharply chamfered edges. The problem is the positioning of mini roundabouts than can force you to put a car through a sharp left then right turn on a road originally designed for you to drive straight on. So the mini roundabout does unnecessarily damage tyres, steering and driveshafts. HJ
In my part of the world we have painted ones, a kind of 'block paved' one just up the road and some 'raised blobs'. The 'blobs' are actually quite high and give you a bit of a jolt if you try to go over them. I just try to go around them as best I can. Not noticed any particular wear on driveshafts etc etc.
Incidentally, every day I cross about 10 speedhumps (x2 - 'cause of return journey) and about 5 mini-roundabouts of various types. My '98 Nissan QX is still totally original apart from centre exhaust section (put on just before Christmas). Suspension etc is all OK. I did think front drop links were on the way out last year, but it turned out to be my torch (in the glovebox) knocking when I went over a bump!
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I'd like to know the offence as well.
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These things are a blessed nusiance. Part of the problem seems to be that many drivers do not actualy know what to do and either dither (even some lorys) or pull out in front of you when you have right of way. These days round my way I simply asert priority and pull out at the first sign of a ditherer.
As usual police atempting to raise goverment revenue at the expense of common sense.
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When trying to go around the blob on a biggish one in Rochdale, I was overtaken on my right by someone who cut straight across. After that, I now do whatever the other cars are doing. If 5 cars in front of me have just driven straight over the white circle, I'll do the same.
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As usual police atempting to raise goverment revenue at the expense of common sense.
Risible suggestion. The fine is £35; will not cover the time to write and process it. It's a deterrent, a quick way out for the guilty and cannot be bothered.
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I'd like to know the offence as well.
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ditto and deja vu.
so would i, and probably the rest of the backroom to boot.
but it seems peter-d has set the hare running and left the building ?
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The problem is the positioning of mini roundabouts than can force you to put a car through a sharp left then right turn on a road originally designed for you to drive straight on. So the mini roundabout does unnecessarily damage tyres, steering and driveshafts.
Two sharpish turns damages a car? Surely if that was the case, drivers would be warned about the damage caused by any sharpish turn.
I could believe this if you said it caused extra wear to those components. But "damage" sounds like an overstated case.
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Two sharpish turns damages a car? Surely if that was the case, drivers would be warned about the damage caused by any sharpish >> turn. I could believe this if you said it caused extra wear to those components. But "damage" sounds like an overstated case.
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if it was just two turns, it would be an overstated case. but unfortunately, in most people's experience summed over the period of their ownership of any particular car, the total number of these cyclic stresses will be orders of magnitude greater than two.
and these can and will eventualy damage a car's suspension and tyres.
unless of course no-wheels can find a chartered engineer with experience of suspension design who can say otherwise.
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