The only road in London where you have to drive on the right
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Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right
#2See also: The Magic Roundabout in Swindon. One of the only? roundabouts in the UK that goes anticlockwise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)
Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right
#3See also: The Magic Roundabout in Swindon. One of the only? roundabouts in the UK that goes anticlockwise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)
I'm sure you know this, but for the benefit of those who haven't seen it before: it does not go anticlockwise. The"roundabout" in the middle is an illusion generated by the 5 normal roundabouts in a circle. There are no special rules.
It has a bad rep, but if you're used to British mini roundabouts, driving on it is a non-event. The regularity actually means it's simpler than other, smaller, but more arbitrary aggregations of mini-roundabouts.
Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right
#4See also: The Magic Roundabout in Swindon. One of the only? roundabouts in the UK that goes anticlockwise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)
Oof that looks brutal
Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right
#5See also: The Magic Roundabout in Swindon. One of the only? roundabouts in the UK that goes anticlockwise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)
My first encounter with this was on a foggy November morning, and I had no idea what was going on.
There's another very similar but smaller one at Heathrow, next to the Hatton Cross tube station. That one has the added attraction of London taxis and Ubers traversing it at high speed.
Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right
#6It’s nearby London’s last sewer powered gas lamp.
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/F...
Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right
#7See also: The Magic Roundabout in Swindon. One of the only? roundabouts in the UK that goes anticlockwise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)
I'm sure you know this, but for the benefit of those who haven't seen it before: it does not go anticlockwise. The"roundabout" in the middle is an illusion generated by the 5 normal roundabouts in a circle. There are no special rules. It has a bad rep, but if you're used to British mini roundabouts, driving on it is a non-event. The regularity actually means it's simpler than other, smaller, but more arbitrary aggreg…
So it accomplishes the baseline performance that just about every major intersection planned out in the last 100yr does of being navigable without serious confusion.
If it's so good why aren't there more of them? Not like England has any shortage of N-way (where N >4) intersections they could be used at.
The wikipedia page says "the roundabout provides a better throughput of traffic than other designs and has an excellent safety record, since traffic moves too slowly to do serious damage in the event of a collision" which to me sounds a lot like someone trying to spin failure to play up the silver lining.
Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right
#8I watched a Waymo try to take this on last night. It drove on the left.
Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right
#9London will switch sides when America goes metric - i.e. never.
Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right
#10London will switch sides when America goes metric - i.e. never.
Once all manufacturing is controlled by China, they could refuse to make cars with steering on the right or use Standard measurements, increasing pressure and eventually forcing the UK and US to switch.