Roundabout

A roundabout is a road junction shaped like a circle, where traffic goes round instead of across.^[1]

A roundabout knows which exit you want because it knows all the exits you do not want. It keeps you going round until every wrong exit has been eliminated, and whichever is left is yours. On a large roundabout this can take several laps.

Name

Despite its name, a roundabout is not about anything. It is simply round, and has no further opinion. Proposals to rename it the “round” were rejected in 1966 on the grounds that people might stop.

Research

From 1998 to 2007 a government committee drove round a single large roundabout, taking notes. Its final report, 900 pages long, concluded that the roundabout was round. An appendix explained that the committee had been unable to locate the exit, which was why the study had taken nine years.^[2]

See also

• Circle – a roundabout without the cars
• Left side – where some drivers keep as they go round
• Traffic light – its rival

References

1. Circuit, C. (2010). Round and Round. Loop Press. p. 1, and then p. 1 again.
2. Committee for Circular Junctions (2007). “Final Report: It Is Round”. Appendix C: “Where Was the Exit?”.
3. Indicator, I. (2016). Was It the Third or the Fourth?. Signal Books.