Roundabouts drive me round the bend. Time to abolish them
These ‘traffic-calming measures’ seem designed to exasperate and enrage, says
Like so much in life, traffic roundabouts seem designed to cause maximum irritation. There are way too many of them, for a start; the UK is second only to France in sheer numbers – 25,976 compared with 42,986 – but we have far less landmass, so you are likely to encounter roundabouts much more frequently in the UK.
But it’s not simply about volume; the concept is straight out of the socialist playbook, whereby those with purpose must compromise haste and efficiency in order to give way to dawdlers. No wonder roundabouts, or “circles” as Americans call them, never caught on across the pond. In western Los Angeles, for instance, the Venice Circle is seen as an amusing landmark.
The not-so-humble roundabout has been the bane of drivers’ lives since architects Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin designed the very first one at Sollershott Circus in Letchworth Garden City back in 1909. But while some may tolerate yielding to the right and sticking to the “correct” lane, whenever I’m confronted by the dithery uncertainties of traffic-calming etiquette
I feel a sudden, anarchic urge to barge my way to the other side as quickly and as recklessly as possible. There’s only so much passive aggressive, gritted-teethed civility we drivers can muster.
By forcing us to consider other road users even when there aren’t any, roundabouts supposedly improve road safety, but anyone attempting to make the perilous journey from Piccadilly to Park Lane in the centre of the capital knows the opposite to be true.
According to a 10-year analysis of road collisions published in 2023, Hyde Park Corner is the fifth-mostdangerous gyratory in the UK. I use it all the time and can vouch for the lunacy that awaits unsuspecting drivers. Knowing which of the six lanes to take for each of the six exits is like a game of Russian roulette; pick the wrong one and you could end up circling Wellington Arch forever.
In addition to all those confusing lane switches where cars, trucks, cyclists and double-deckers jostle for supremacy, drivers must contend with several sets of traffic lights, which surely contradicts the
purpose of a roundabout, namely to keep traffic flowing.
Data from MotorEasy reveals that the five most dangerous roundabouts are all in London, but dear old Hyde Park Corner is a genteel merry-go-round compared with the giant rusting ferris wheel known as the Hammersmith Flyover, statistically the most dangerous roundabout in the UK. The good news is that in October 2025, the Hammersmith and Fulham Council
cabinet formally approved a draft plan to replace the whole sorry mess with a tunnel.
Outside the capital, few places have escaped the purgatory of gyratories. Enter any provincial town or city and it won’t be long before you find yourself going round in circles, some “mini”, some conflict-reducing “turbo”, others just plain daft. Roundabouts will often feed directly into other roundabouts that lead inexorably to yet more
roundabouts until you are driven to dizzying distraction. Milton Keynes has more 130 of the damn things; that’s about four per square mile, making it the UK’s roundabout capital. Local reports suggest that the number may be even higher if smaller internal junctions are included.
And don’t imagine that the countryside has escaped the ongoing defacement. Head north along the A12 in Suffolk, for instance, and you arrive at what was once an area of outstanding natural beauty but is now the site of two mega-roundabouts near the villages of Yoxford and Friday Street. Opened to much fanfare over the Easter break, these latest globules of committee-led planning are designed to ease construction traffic heading to the devastation about to be wrought at nearby Sizewell C nuclear power plant.
Developers claim the roundabouts will improve “safety and connectivity”,
Is there anything less calming than being trapped on a congested concrete island?
but at what cost? Up and down the country charming rural enclaves are being bulldozed and replaced by mini Hyde Park Corners designed to improve “efficiency”, a loathsome concept that annihilates anything deemed quirky or unusual.
As for the lie of “traffic calming”, is there anything less calming than being trapped on a congested concrete island filled with livid commuters hooting at each other for daring to be in the “wrong” lane?
The notorious Magic Roundabout in Swindon takes traffic-calming psychosis to new levels of absurdity. I’ve attempted it a couple of times, and on both occasions have nearly come a cropper. This mother of all follies isn’t simply a traffic island; it is five mini-roundabouts arranged in a circle surrounded by a larger central loop connecting them all. And if that wasn’t confusing enough, the outer circle carries traffic in a clockwise direction while the inner circle runs anticlockwise.
Viewed from above it looks like a vision of hell dreamed up by a hangry toddler. The whole sorry venture appears to have been designed to intimidate and confound, which suggests that designer Frank Blackmore of the British Transport and Road Research Laboratory really hates the good people of Swindon.
The truth is that we could lose about 80 per cent of these ugly annoyances without anyone even noticing. Yes, traffic lights can be irksome at times, but at least you know where you are with a fourway junction. And, unlike roundabouts, you won’t be going round in ever-decreasing circles.