As a rule the highway code gets it right but unfortunately once youve mastered it along comes the local authorities who have different ideas and start painting arrows all over the road that nine times out of ten make no sense at all.
By the time the car in front of you reveals them its probably too late to change lanes anyway and of course you get the clever local (for want of a better word) who is fully aware of these lane priorities and takes great pleasure in carving you up.
Take roundabouts for instance, the highway code says give way to traffic coming from the right, so what idiot had the bright idea of putting two micro roundabouts on top of each other with only space for one lane between them.
This means that two vehicles travelling in opposite directions wanting to turn right both have the right of way, and both have to give way,--doh!--- don’t they?
Staying with roundabouts the highway code doesn’t mention anything about approaching a roundabout that has no lanes, in other words a single carriageway.
On one occasion I was stopped at such a roundabout with my van in tow waiting for traffic to abate when a car squeezed in between me and the centre reservation doing his best to occupy my piece of tarmac.
I glanced across and was amazed to see a copper sat there in his police car glaring at me.
I dropped my side window and asked him if he was on a shout, no reply, no blue light, no siren, he just sat there.
So what’s your problem then I said, to which I lip read an unprintable reply and he roared off nearly taking my wing mirror with him. Like I say, I don’t think its covered in the book but I would have thought if you approach a roundabout on a single carriageway then surely the roundabout continues as a single carriageway, or did I miss something.
-------------
The longest sentence known to man is "I do"
|
Topic: Highway Code
