A Bad Diagram

Anyone who has driven on New Zealand’s roads knows that there’s a lot of drivers who don’t seem to know the rules surrounding indicators in roundabouts.

Know your way around roundabouts

This is from a NZTA brochure called Know your way around roundabouts from 2005. Well intentioned as it is in trying to simplify the roundabout rules, the diagram seems to suggest that in the middle of the roundabout, when going around the roundabout, drivers can just stop indicating. If someone actually followed this advice, a car waiting at the opposite side of the intersection might think that this car was going straight (which is when you don’t indicate on entry and indicate left on exit) and pull out in front of it. When turning “right”, like in the picture, the driver should really be indicating right until the picture shows to indicate left.

Drivers who don’t know the actual rules probably think they’re doing it right. It wouldn’t hurt to look at the clarity of material released by NZTA.