I guess it depends where, but in both London and Bordeaux (where I live and where I lived), on a dual carriage way you never know if right lane is right only, or right and straight ahead. Equally, the left lane could be left turn only, or left turn and straight ahead.

And unless you've been here before and made the mistake (and got beeped at in the process) you probably won't know nor see the arrows as you're following the car in front of you.

I find it very useful (when it works)

I had the same issue when I was living in Geneva, especially when driving in dense traffic. You'd be on the right lane of a two lane road, and suddenly it turns to the right while the left lane continues on straight. And obviously there'd be no way to quickly go to the left lane anymore because the traffic is severely stuck anyway. So then you end up driving in the wrong direction, still stuck in traffic, and have to take a (sometimes significant) detour.

Happened to me more than a few times, and the only way you can avoid it is if you know all the local roads, or if your navigation software knows it...

Don't the street signs give you an indication that a lane branches off?

Not always, but perhaps I misremember. It's usually printed on the road itself though, but you can't always see that because other cars are queued on top of it...

I’ve a particular junction in mind where there’s no street signage on the junction saying you can’t go straight in the left lane until you’re at the junction (which is around a bend), and he only road markings for it are covered by cars queueing to go straight. Google also gets this particular junction wrong.

One of the disadvantages of having round-abouts everywhere is that they aren't as well marked as they are in the states.

In my area, they finally started putting these in where we used to have four-way stops and the traffic flow is much better. However, people in the states are utterly baffled by them since we don't encounter them regularly. So there's usually a sign almost a half-mile back explaining what lane you need to be in depending on where you're trying to get ... and then another two signs, along with painting on the street, to tell you again as you approach.

Roundabouts in the US? - Amateurs: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5626214,-1.7700658,3a,75y,...

However for pant wetting excitement in your car, I also recommend la Place du Concorde in Paris when its busy (its always busy). Its not a roundabout as such, more a loose agreement.

Wow, my mind is blown. It's roundabout inception.

Are these common?

This is so confusing I had to view it from top down perspective and I still have no clue how you would navigate through this.

It looks like a vehicle approaching the Magic Roundabout via A4312 can use the outer ring to exit via B4289 or Fleming Way but any other exit the vehicle must spin in circles to enter the inner ring. I give up.

There's only one Magic Roundabout. It was the result of an open tender and I think that the winning team was from a local college. There were five roads leading into a weird space and it needed fixing. It's not as bad as it looks. Actually, it is as bad as it looks when you first encounter it.

The centre (which doesn't really show up on Goog maps) goes anti-clockwise, bear in mind that we drive on the left and go clockwise around a roundabout usually. You can use the outside to avoid the centre completely, which is often faster. The main problem is that it is very heavily used and hence some of the markings are scrubbed out. Also it is easy to get disorientated but even if you fly out of the wrong exit, it is easy to use a side street later to get back on track.

I have to say that I would not recommend visiting Swindon to someone who usually drives on the right hand side. To be fair I don't really recommend Swindon to anyone 8) For me, the MR is the exciting end to a two hour drive to visit a customer - just what you need to wake you up at ~0930.

There's another one in Hemel Hempstead: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.7447339,-0.4732789,167a,35...

It's very simple: yield to people making a left from Shrivensham, then enter the first roundabout. The internal circle is not a roundabout, people already inside will yield to you. So you can continue going forward (over the KEEP CLEAR area) and navigate around the center anti-clockwise. You yield again to people from Shrivensham and depending on what exist you want you need to traverse another one or two roundabouts and exit the desired road.

That about rounds it up, I would say!

I used to think European roundabouts were exciting. Then I went to China.

If you need excitement in Europe, I can recommend anywhere near or in Naples (Napoli) or Rome, Paris, Deutsche Autobahns and most of Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

I am aware that European roads as a whole are rather straightforwards compared to some parts (OK most) of the world. For starters we have rules and most of the time they are nearly obeyed. However the rules are often not quite the safe as the official ones.

For example, I discovered that around Napoli, you use your entire car as an indicator. Once you wedge it into a tiny gap then people will generally give way but you have to be very quick and accurate. It may be coincidental that when me and wifey started observing properly, that we estimated that around 90-95% of cars in that area had visible damage and were generally of fairly low value (in general).

When I gave a lift to an interview candidate at my company, who happened to be Polish, he remarked upon our habit of letting waiting cars out of side streets onto the main road. "That would not happen in Poland" he said, but I'm sure it does sometimes.

Speaking very, very generally, and given my experience does not extend to Scandinavia and quite a few other local-ish lands but does include US and Canada, I would tentatively suggest that the UK is generally a safe place to drive and is, generally, a forgiving driving environment. Our road signs are possibly the best anywhere but we do have too many signs in some places.

Driving in China would scare the shit out of me and I'm pretty confident behind the wheel.

China is a whole different world driving-wise. After I got in a cab in Guangzhou, the driver immediately made a u-turn across 4 lanes of traffic, then drove the wrong way into a 5(?) lane roundabout (explaining "shorter this way"--he would have needed to go almost all they way around in the "correct" direction). No other drivers honked or indicted real surprise with either maneuver.

I agree that it's difficult, but I've found that google gets it wrong as often as it gets it right.

Try driving around in New Jersey, especially close to New York. There are some exits, for example, where the exit is two lanes, but one of the lanes splits off from the main lane, but you better be in that left lane because you have to keep left right after you take that right exit... and then take another right after that.

Lane guidance is very helpful in these situations.

You get this north of Chicago a lot too... on I-294 merge into the right two lanes, keep left, pass the exit, merge into the right lane, keep right, merge left to finally get onto I-90.

I drive it several times a year and I still need lane guidance to help.

Seriously. I can handle most NYC driving but I'd be absolutely ruined in Jersey or even Westchester without lane guidance.

Sorry I’m nt arguing against lane guidance. My issue is that google gets it wrong in many situations (usually when you need it)

It's intuitive, until it isn't. I can from the top of my head cite various autobahn crossings in Germany where you need to keep on the left to ultimately go right because you're going through an underpass: The A81 crossing in Heilbronn coming from Heidelberg, the crossing at Dreieck Funkturm in Berlin coming from Potsdam, ...

It's also often useful to know how many lanes can be used for a turn, etc, so you can switch lanes early.

Google Maps has been a lifesaver in Sydney CBD for me as a driver unfamiliar with the Byzantine lane timing required, lack of signalling, and frequent undocumented works and blockages (I do wish they'd incorporate the random M5 closures though). It does get laggy and imprecise once you get in the area with tall buildings though.

At least around the SF Bay Area, there are often freeway exits and splits where multiple lanes are turning in one direction, but you want to be in a specific lane for an immediate upcoming split or turn. If I don't know the specific turn I'm taking (I've never been there, perhaps, or I'm just not there too often), this can definitely save me the aggravation of trying to navigate across several busy lanes of traffic to make a turn on the other side of the road.

(My even-more-anecdotal experience is that Apple Maps tends to have better turn lane guidance than Google, which isn't something I'd remotely have guessed.)

I was driving through Atlanta the other day for the first time and now appreciate the value of lane guidance. You can be on an 8 lane highway with three simultaneous exit options. If you find yourself in the wrong lane it is not an enjoyable experience.