The Problem: Complex roundabouts can be difficult to navigate, increasing the risk of collision.
The Solution: Paint lines on the road to easily guide drivers to the correct exit.
I’ve been doing quite a lot of driving recently on unfamiliar roads, both driving myself and being driven by others, and we’ve consistently had problems on roundabouts, getting into the wrong lane or taking the wrong exit.
Signposting is often difficult to understand and see in advance, SatNavs can be confusing and imprecise, and the lines demarcating lanes can also be confusing.
I therefore propose a simple solution, which is to paint coloured lines in the middle of road lanes and link them into the destinations on signage and SatNavs.
So, instead of looking out for your destination on roundabout exit signs (which takes time and concentration to find and read) or listening to your SatNav say which exit to take (which can be confusing when there are small exits which may or may not be counted), you simply follow the colour painted on the road.
This would not only make it easier to know which exit to take, but would also help drivers get into the correct lane on their approach to a roundabout and as they travel around larger roundabouts.
A simple coloured line is far easier to pick up than road names written on tarmac, and the coloured lines can also be longer, making them easier to identify at a distance or when stationary vehicles hide the writing on a lane.
Drivers can then focus more on driving, less on working out where they need to go, and there should be fewer late lane changes, all helping to reduce collisions and wrong turns.
There would need to be some thought and experimentation with which colours to use and how thick and long to make the lines, but these are eminently solvable.
Painting the lines could be done quickly and inexpensively, and the alterations to road signage leading up to roundabouts (which would tell drivers which colour to follow for their destination) could also be inexpensive, with simple coloured squares bolted onto existing signs, as opposed to requiring completely new signage.
SatNav systems would need to be updated, but again this is eminently achievable.
I’m told by a friend in Japan that they already do this for some complex junctions (they have very few roundabouts out there), so the idea has already been shown to work, we just need to bring it to UK roads.
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