Driving instructors have revealed how to tackle Britain's most infamous roundabout - including 'fight the fear' and have 'eyes in the back of your head'.
The 'Magic Roundabout' in Swindon in Wiltshire has been one of the country's most feared junctions for more than 50 years.
It is not on a test route but some learners do take on the challenge as the ultimate challenge before taking their test. And instructors across the town have now given their expert advice on how to handle it.
The 'Magic Roundabout' in Swindon in Wiltshire has been one of the country's most feared junctions for more than 50 years.
It is not on a test route but some learners do take on the challenge as the ultimate challenge before taking their test. And instructors across the town have now given their expert advice on how to handle it.
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00:00Hi, I'm Terry Truman. I've been a driving instructor in Swindon for 10 years.
00:04I should think it's confusing to people who don't live in Swindon.
00:08For most people who live in Swindon, it becomes a part of life.
00:13It's a unique reindebate. There isn't another one like it.
00:17But what it is, is just a few mini reindebates with a lamp post in the middle.
00:24The lamp post in the middle is not a reindebate,
00:27and it actually goes the opposite way around to what you would normally go.
00:32But when you come up to the mini reindebates,
00:34as you can see they're very well marked at the moment.
00:37When you come up to it, you've got a choice.
00:39You can either go left or you can go right.
00:42And that leads you on to another one where you can go left or you can go right.
00:47And every now and then you'll get an exit with your signposts which you turn left onto.
00:54So if you go right, you'll just go back around into the magic reindebate.
00:57But at a certain stage you turn left and you will come off either head to the motorway
01:03or into town, or into town a couple of times, or around to the football club.
01:07The best way to navigate in the first place is just to use it like a big reindebate.
01:12And that can go around the whole of the outside of it and come off at the exits.
01:17And then you just come up to the and turn right and then left at the exit that you want to.
01:23After that it's just easy to come and take the second exit.
01:28So at the first mini-reindebate you've actually got to go right
01:32and the second mini-reindebate you actually go left.
01:34It does get a bit of used to.
01:36People from outside of Swindon probably find it daunting and they would.
01:42And they do on a regular basis.
01:44They come round the middle one the wrong way and then head into traffic.
01:49If they were to remove it or replace it with one big roundabout or a load of lights.
01:54It'd be chaos, it'd be chaos.
01:55The amount of traffic, even now it's quite quiet as you can see.
01:58This is gridlocked at certain times.
02:01And if it was just a normal reindebate with all the wasted space in the middle,
02:06which most reindebates are, there's only two or three lanes most reindebates,
02:10mainly outside, allowing traffic to go through the middle actually takes some of it away.
02:17But the important thing, as I say to my students,
02:20it's like any other reindebate.
02:22When you approach it you've got to give way to the right.
02:25These being mini-reindebates and on the Magic Reindebate there's only two.
02:30You can either go left or right.
02:32It's only a choice of two so it isn't that difficult.