Watch: How traffic light programming helps manage congestion

No, it was terrifying. I was on a project in the UK for seven months in Swindon. I loved the roundabouts.

Then one day I stumbled into the Magic Roundabout. The outer circles go the normal way, the large inner circle moves in the opposite direction. I couldn’t figure out what was going on, although I’d driven there for months. It looks like they’ve added some elements that define the circles; when I was there is seemed to just be a bunch of circles painted on the ground. Fortunately there wasn’t much traffic and I inched across the middle in a panic, looking the stupidest American on the road.

I did go back to tackle the MR, and did manage to get the hang of looping around the outside circles. But I never got used to the clockwise/counter-clockwise/clockwise pattern.

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