jayeless
jayeless

We’ve arrived back home unscathed, although Viv copped a warning from NSW Police for speeding on the Hume 🤦🏻‍♀️ For lunch we stopped off at Beechworth, a historic gold mining town in Victoria’s northeast. Keen to have an early night and deep sleep 😊

a view of a Beechworth street, historic buildings and classic cars visible Beechworth Post Office building seen from across the street another historic building in Beechworth seen from the opposite corner
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pimoore
pimoore

@jayeless These are gorgeous, I especially like the last one with the bank and what looks like a roundabout?

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jayeless
jayeless

@pimoore Thank you! It is, indeed, a roundabout. They seem suuuuper common both in Canberra and in regional NSW and Vic.

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pimoore
pimoore

@jayeless I’m glad they’re not common here, as the majority of people driving on the ones closest to me don’t know what they’re doing.

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maique
maique

@pimoore Roundabouts are also everywhere here, funny to think they’re rare where you live. You spend a LOT of time going through them when getting a drivers license. @jayeless

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jayeless
jayeless

@pimoore Haha, they're not that common where we live (although there are a few in the vicinity), and Vivian was getting really flustered encountering them at nearly every intersection in Canberra as a result. In theory they're supposed to be really good (for drivers, not pedestrians of course), but you have to be used to them first…

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pimoore
pimoore

@jayeless @maique I wish we’d have more of them and get everyone trained on using them properly, as they’re super efficient. I also despise traffic lights as the majority of the time they’re not timed properly.

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jayeless
jayeless

@maique Yep, I never ended up getting my drivers licence but when I was doing lessons, the instructor would take me through routes with roundabout after roundabout after roundabout 😂 He was always raving about how amazing they were (lower collision rates, better traffic throughput, etc.)… personally I did not share his enthusiasm, although they're OK I guess 😅 In Canberra they occur a lot even at very very busy intersections which was a bit new for us.

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maique
maique

@pimoore @jayeless I guess they are good, now that I’m thinking about it. They are present everywhere here, from smaller country roads, to the busiest parts of the cities.

Side note: Waking up at 2AM and finding myself talking about roundabouts is something I guess only happens on Micro.blog… 🤣

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ryanmoore
ryanmoore

@jayeless @maique @pimoore Roundabouts are brilliant, when they're used correctly. Most instructors teach them incorrectly: you don't give way to the right, you give way to everybody already in the roundabout. Many roundabouts have a main thoroughfare and smaller ones adjoining, so as people speed through them, and everybody waits for the car to the right, they can easily get clogged up with traffic and eventually result in traffic lights replacing them. If everybody slowed down on the approach, gave way to whoever enters first, and indicated when leaving the roundabout, they flow very easily. In WA the police enforce the indicating when leaving the roundabout (well, they did so 15 years ago when I lived there) and everybody did so, making it flow very efficiently.

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maique
maique

@ryanmoore They do flow, and that’s pretty much how we do it, except the usual right/left change, as we drive on the right side.

People do stick to the rules on them, a lot more than elsewhere on the road. We’re also notorious non-blinkers, and still do it on roundabouts. If you don’t learn it properly while taking your classes, this is the place where others will educate you. Somehow we, as drivers, seem to take them more seriously and stick to the rules, now that I’m thinking about this as never before 🤣

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Ddanielson
Ddanielson

@ryanmoore @maique @jayeless @pimoore I first encountered roundabouts in England, driving on the “wrong side” of the road. Once you learn it “backwards”, it’s easy. They came years later to WA State and I went through a few this week where people are unclear on the concept. Stopping, when they only needed to go with the flow.

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