This morning's commute and other commuting stories

I looked at the street view and it was this roundabout. I've attached a diagram showing our relative positions as I entered. As I said, I saw him a bit before the first position shown. Should I have waited, do you think, given where we were? My judgement about how safe it was to enter the junction was partly driven by the fact that there were two entry lanes on my side and clearly passing room on the roundabout itself. His judgement as to the danger of the manoeuvre was probably driven by the fact he had to pass me back into one lane of traffic at his exit.

From your description, you were not at fault, and at any rate didn't think it was a particularly dangerous situation. Did you mean to draw the driver's position in the wrong entry lane for the manoeuvre he was about to attempt or was he in the correct (offside) lane?

I imagine that I would have waited a moment for the driver to pass if I'd seen them, even if they were in the wrong, but it's easy to say that without having been surprised by the situation.

Asymmetry in the number of entry and exit lanes is another common problem with roundabouts, but here the assumption is that the offside lane will be used only by right-turners, so that only one exit lane is needed. (It obviously doesn't always happen like that in practice.) This is the case at very many junctions. As I said earlier, the driver should have followed you (rather than using the wider space on that side to manoeuvre himself into a conflict situation).

Anyway, such innocuous incidents tell you quite a lot about junction design. Here I wonder if there are often long queues there for drivers exiting Victoria Road, and if that may have influenced his behaviour. People are sometimes terrified of having to wait.