I want to do this short video on how we can
use other traffic and even pedestrians, cyclists to our advantage when we are on these, particularly
the roundabouts that are very busy or people are zipping round them, we've got a classic
example of that just coming up here. The speed limit is 30 but it's a very busy,
small roundabout, as such the skill of being able to decide when is the right time to actually
go on to the roundabout, it needs quite some work on it. Assessing when is the right time and being
able to make that judgement. Hopefully something will give us a good opportunity
to see where I'm coming from, using "blockers", other vehicles to our advantage. A lot of people just end up staring to the
right on these roundabouts.
Looking to the left, and in this case the
traffic coming from the left is actually going to help our cause. That white van there, might block the vehicles
to my right. In fact that was a classic example, he's done
exactly that. You can't really afford, such is the speed
at which the traffic is moving on these roundabouts, you can't afford for the white van to actually,
literally, physically obstruct the vehicles coming from my right, you can't wait for that
moment in time because generally speaking, it's going to be too late. You have to
anticipate that the white van is going to be doing you a favour and is going to be blocking
them, and the point at which the van does exactly that is the point at which you can
then move, you can actually crack on. That just takes a bit of fine tuning to get
that right. But once you've got it, once you've practised
it and developed it, it's really handy, particularly on that sort of roundabout where it's pretty
zippy.
People are not hanging around. Getting used to the idea of using other vehicles
to your advantage is really nice, it's the timing at which you say alright that is a
blocker, and don't wait for it to actually, physically block the vehicles to the right,
the point at which the vehicles to the right are giving way to the blocker, that is the
point at which you can then move off, because it's done it's job, it has actually blocked
that traffic for you..