I had a follow up email from a user who had reported a turn not allowed. He said that Waze had asked him to do a 360 turn at a mini roundabout, which is not allowed by the Highway Code.
Rule 188 does indeed say to avoid doing u turns at mini roundabouts. While I think this only advisory, it would be good if Waze could follow such advice. But I can’t think of any way to restrict mini roundabouts, which of course as far as Waze is concerned are exactly the same as large ones where a 360 (or even a 720 if my wife is navigating) is perfectly ok.
Like you stated Waze just sees all roundabouts the same. So unless Waze implement something, which I think is unlikely then it’s something we have to live with.
I can think of more than 20 mini roundabouts in various places around the country that I use on a weekly basis where you are required to make 360 turns in order to access certain roads/facilities.
I’m not aware of U-turns at mini roundabouts being illegal. In fact the Highway Code only says to “avoid” them and be wary of others doing them. Obviously it would be better and safer to find other places to turn around in certain situations, but I can’t see how you can distinguish instructions for certain places. The difficultly or danger of performing a U-turn on a mini roundabout is not just based on it’s size, but also on number of roads joining and how “raised” the centre is.
As David says rule 188 does say they shouldn’t be done. There is no way to rule these out via waze. I don’t think it’s correct to remove the roundabout and have a vanilla junction instead. If we ever make it to Paris we can raise it with them. Might be possible to have the server disallow it for junctions <10 metres.
There is no “shouldn’t” in there. A U-turn at a mini roundabout is a perfectly LEGAL maneuvre. Possibly unexpected to other drivers who should be paying more attention, but perfectly LEGAL.
I’m with faitaru - the Code is more of a ‘guideline’ than actual law (though police could make something stick if they really needed to). Waze often suggests far worse places to do a U-turn, both illegal and impossible, so mini-roundabouts are the least of our worries.
The words MUST/MUST NOT in a rule denote “legal requirements, and if you disobey these rules you are committing a criminal offence”
“Although failure to comply with the other rules of the Code will not, in itself, cause a person to be prosecuted, The Highway Code may be used in evidence in any court proceedings under the Traffic Acts (see ‘The road user and the law’) to establish liability. This includes rules which use advisory wording such as ‘should/should not’ or ‘do/do not’.” [my italics]
Rule 188 uses the word AVOID which is clearly advisory and falls into this second category. So, perhaps, doing a u-turn that leads to an accident might give you a harder case to prove you weren’t at fault.
Hi Guys,
To clarify the High way code is guidance only!!! (Unless stated within the text)
and is there to promote best driving practice.
Raised mini roundabouts should be driven around, flat (painted) mini roundabouts can be driven over.
Both types require the normal roundabout driving procedures i.e give way to traffic on the roundabout or traffic entering the roundabout to right.
Both types it is perfectly legal to effectively do a U turn.
Hope this clears things up.
As a newly passed driver (Sept 16th) I read the whole bloody thing over and over.
From the Directgov website (the full UK highway code is on there):
“Mini-roundabouts. Approach these in the same way as normal roundabouts. All vehicles MUST pass round the central markings except large vehicles which are physically incapable of doing so. Remember, there is less space to manoeuvre and less time to signal. Avoid making U-turns at mini-roundabouts. Beware of others doing this.”
It just means be wary of people doing this. It is not an illegal turn, it is perfectly legal, but more of an advisory that you probably shouldn’t do it unless you really have to. The usual advice would be “be more observant than usual”. Second sentence pretty much says it anyway “Approach these in the same way as normal roundabouts.”
Oh and to craigy, you MUST drive round flat OR raised mini-roundabouts unless your vehicle’s wheelbase is too long to be able to. That is not advisory, it’s a “do this or you will get nicked if caught”.
A u-turn and a 360 on a mini rb are entirely different animals, in that a u-turn is a 180° turn and a 360 would involve doing a full circuit of the rb and then continuing in your original direction of travel, for which I can not see a valid reason for so doing.
However, I am being pedantic, and legally (which is the important bit) a u-turn is allowed, and is safer and therefore a better practice than doing a u-turn on the actual carriageway.
The rules of a rb are that you must give way to vehicles to your right, so providing you execute the u-turn carefully with the correct indication there should not be a problem.
If you are approaching a mini rb from ’ 6 o’clock’ (clock face reference) and intend to return from whence you came, provided you are indicating right the only traffic you should need to pay extra attention to is that approaching the rb from 3 o’clock as all other traffic should naturally give way to you as long as you have right of way at the commencement of your manoeuvre.
In most cases I would agree,
But said copper what I questioned knows his onions so to speak (and has got me out of a couple of tickets in the past), so I believe he can be trusted
