News

Roundabout way to pass driving test

With roundabouts posing the biggest obstacle for learner drivers in the UK, AA driving school has appointed a 'Chief of Roundabout Negotiation' to help drivers master the art and pass their test first time.

In new research, half of AA driving school instructors questioned identified roundabouts as the most likely point for British learners to come unstuck during their test.

The most popular roundabouts to cause a driving test headache were named as The Great Cambridge Roundabout in Edmonton and Leicester's Porkpie Roundabout. Other key culprits include:

• Brighton Hill Roundabout, Basingstoke
• Headington Roundabout in Oxfordshire
• Hazelwick Roundabout, Crawley
• Nuthall Roundabout, Nottingham
• Ricoh Arena Roundabout, Coventry
• Scott's Green Roundabout, Dudley
• Winchester Road Roundabout, Chandler's Ford
• The Magic Roundabout, Swindon

Colin Goodsell, the School's newly appointed Chief of Roundabout Negotiation explains "Roundabouts can be especially daunting for a learner driver and, as our research reveals, the most likely time for a mistake resulting in failure to occur. The main problems are confusing road markings, fast moving multi-lane traffic and undeveloped judging skills. It is my job to ensure that this forms a key part of driving lessons and training materials."

Roundabouts were followed by behaviour at junctions (24%), reversing around a corner and parallel parking (13%) as the most likely point to fail a driving test. In light of this research the organisation has also launched 'Learn the AA Way' – a set of tools that are available for learners.

Angela Yates, General Manager at AA driving school, adds "As the only national driving school that guarantees its pupils will learn with a fully qualified driving instructor, we wanted to ensure that we are using our instructors to best match pupils needs and therefore help them to pass first time. Getting these experts to feed into our 'Learn the AA Way' resource pack, which is now available for learners to use, is a great step forward for us and our pupils."