Near Miss of the Day 441: Close pass on exiting roundabout

alexcr wrote:

No need for the passee to apologise for being in the left-hand lane – unless I'm missing some signage, that's exactly where he should be for the second exit afaik. The driving school car shouldn't have been in the inner lane for that manoeuvre – hope it's not the instructor driving!

roundabout has two exits, if the left hand lane is for the second exit, where is the right hand lane for? U turns only?

In this case, unless otherwise indicated by arrows, the left hand lane is used to turn left (1st exit), the right hand lane to turn right (3rd+ exit) and either lane can be used to proceed straight ahead (2nd exit).

but there isn't a third exit (other than a full U turn which vary rarely has a lane or gets signed) so I would say when the lanes are unmarked there is one for each exit and hence the rider was not in the correct lane. Now this may be because he was forced there by the driving school car (and may be partly because he left it too late or didn't signal) but these factors we dont know. The following car was reasonable to expect the rider to turn left since that is the lane he was in, however once he had not taken that exit the driver had a responsibility for avoiding any potential incident with the knowledge that the rider ws still on the r/bout and was either taking the exit or going ll the way round (??) either way the driver should have eased off or braked.

in summary: Not great riding - Very bad driving

EK Spinner wrote:

I would say when the lanes are unmarked there is one for each exit

According to the highway code you should use

• the left lane for the first exit
• the right lane for an exit to the right or going full circle
• 'the appropriate lane' for any other exit

So in the absence of any signs or lane markings, it leaves it up to the road user to determine what's an 'appropriate lane' for going straight on. Arguably it's more appropriate for a slower road user to maintain position in the left lane, rather than move across lanes into the path of another vehicle for the sake of it. Taking the lane should be enough of an indication of your intentions to go straight on for anyone who's paying attention. 

there are 2 approach lanes, and 2 exits each with a single lane, there is no right turn.

Anything other than "lane 1 for 1st exit" and "lane 2 for 2nd exit" involves traffic merging on a single lane exit, this is exactly what happened here and nobody is suggesting that was good. Yes the driver shouldn't have attempted to pass (force his way in) but the road positioning on the approach wasn't great in my opinion

There's no right turn, so that part doesn't apply, and you're just left with use the left lane for the first exit and 'the appropriate lane' for straight on. What's 'appropriate' is in the eye of the appropriater.

Traffic merging into a single straight on exit is no different to what you would have in a typical arrangement where there are two unmarked approach lanes, a left exit, a straight exit, and a right exit.

alexls wrote:

In this case, unless otherwise indicated by arrows, the left hand lane is used to turn left (1st exit), the right hand lane to turn right (3rd+ exit) and either lane can be used to proceed straight ahead (2nd exit).

I agree. I would have been in the left hand lane as a matter of course. And although it's not strictly "by the book" I would have indicated right to give following drivers notice that I'm not turning left