Proper education needed to navigate roundabouts

Re: Crashes plague Cambridge’s biggest roundabout — March 13

I originally come from Europe (Scotland) where roundabouts are much more common than in Canada.

I have driven for more than 40 years. When I learned to drive, as part of driver education we were taught how to navigate and use roundabouts safely and courteously. I frequently return to Scotland on family visits and have seen few accidents in roundabouts (and in England and Germany, where I occasionally drive) in all these years.

With few exceptions, most drivers in Europe have good lane discipline, getting into the appropriate lane before a junction and without cutting off other vehicles.

Indicators are used as soon as a driver has passed the exit immediately before that which they intend to leave the roundabout. This advises drivers waiting to join a roundabout that they must wait until a vehicle not signalling has passed and lets following drivers already on the roundabout know that the driver in front is leaving at the next exit. This also lets drivers waiting at that junction know they can join the roundabout, thus reducing any time delay to them, and to drivers behind them also waiting to join.

As most drivers in Canada received driver training and passed their driving tests before roundabouts existed, there is a need for proper driver education in the media to advise drivers as to why, how, what, where and when to safely and swiftly navigate roundabouts. Doug Fyfe Milverton