Roger Rabbits with Jim Bunny

We’re nation of competent, cautious and courteous drivers. And, of course, we all know how to negotiate a traffic roundabout. That’s the consensus. That’s what we tell each other.

So how come many of us suffer spontaneous bouts of decision paralysis, blinker and brake bumbles, and roundabout avoidance syndrome whenever we get a sniff of a yellow road sign with three arcing black arrows? Whoop! Whoop! Roundabout alert.

I can’t be the only one rattled by roundabouts otherwise there wouldn’t be such names as “circle-idiot” or “roundabout-clueless”. This informal slang is for someone who misinterprets lane rules or yields at the wrong time.

Then there’s a “cone” – someone so frozen or intimidated on a roundabout they may as well be a traffic cone. Inert, useless.

A “Sunday” is someone who treats a roundabout like a quiet country lane in Katikati.

A “roundabout ruiner” is a driver who panics, stops unnecessarily or cuts across lanes on a roundabout. I have successfully achieved all three – once, all in the same manoeuvre.

“Manoeuvre” might suggest skill, care, strategy. Mine was more a dance of the dented panels,

A “roundaboob” is an incompetent who doesn’t understand circular traffic junctions.

Misplaced niceness 

A “roundaboob” will stop inside the roundabout for cars entering a roundabout, forgetting they have right of way. I like to think the behaviour of “roundaboobs” is more misplaced niceness. Not enough niceness on the roundabouts.

I’m more the “blinker baron” – someone who uses wrong turn signals, at the wrong time, or doesn’t signal at all, or leaves indicators and hazard lights flashing like a circus tent on carnival night. It provokes interesting responses from other drivers. Mostly not nice. Mostly grawlixes: “$#@***!!” type words questioning my parentage. Unprintable.

I’ve skimmed the rule book. I know how to behave nicely on a roundabout. Theoretically. But at 50km/h, with peak-time traffic and unforgiving attitudes wedged up my tailpipe, there’s a sudden surge of indecision and inadequacy. Knowledge doesn’t necessarily translate to positive action in a crisis.

I was also co-pilot for another “good driver” who made a spontaneous, desperate dive for any exit after being sandwiched by semi-trailers on a peak-time roundabout.

That big, multi-laned beast at Tauriko. He just wanted off without involving an insurance broker or an undertaker. I just bowed my head and prayed to whatever God watches over roundabouts.

The ‘four commandments’ 

That God’s abundant – he’s just gifted about nine new roundabouts on State Highway 2 between Bethlehem and Katikati to mankind. And now a $2.5 million gem ensuring a seamless traffic flow through what was the dangerous Ngatai/Bureta roads intersection.

However, I can reduce a “seamless flow” to an ineffectual trickle with my driver creep, my caution. I wonder if any of that $2.5m was set aside for special remedial after-school classes, for we roundabout-challenged drivers? I suggest there are a few of us. A Lot more than will let on.

As I said, every New Zealand driver is a good driver. Just ask them.

I got a look like a bent fender when I asked a friend if they knew the “four commandments” for roundabouts. “Ahhh ... I like to think I do.”

They do, but they don’t.

“I just hope like hell no one is approaching from the right. I don’t care how far away they are, or whether they’ll cross my path, I’ll stop and give way.” How does that help the flow factor?

In a real world, should my friend indicate when travelling straight though a roundabout? “Only signal as you pass the last exit before the one you want to take.” That’s right! “No, left!” Yes, I meant that’s right, left! Roundabout confusion, and we’re not even on a roundabout.

Crazy out there 

Our driver doesn’t indicate at all, because, she says, she followed a cop through the exact same manoeuvre recently, and he didn’t signal. She should have pulled him over and given him one of his own tickets. He would have said “do as I say, not what I do”.

“Are you trying me on?” said another punter when quizzed about roundabout rules and regs. “Of course I know … well, I think so.” Which is very different to “knowing” so. No one wants to say they don’t know.

Then a punter said something disturbing. “Everyone does it differently. Some don’t indicate, some indicate sometimes, and some over-indicate. They just think everyone else is psychic, that they can read your mind. And even if they do signal,” she added, “you can’t necessarily believe them”.

“A signal doesn’t necessarily align with what a driver is about to do.” It’s crazy out there on the roundabouts.