The Magic Roundabout in Swindon, England was constructed in 1972 and consists of five mini-roundabouts arranged in a circle. Its name comes from the popular children’s television series The Magic Roundabout (a children’s television program created in France in 1963). Traffic flow around the smaller, inner roundabout is anti-clockwise, and traffic flows in the usual clockwise manner around the five mini-roundabouts and the outer loop. Local and regular users are proficient at traversing the complex junction, which offers multiple paths between feeder roads. Virtually the same overall configuration has been in place for over 30 years.
In 2005, it was voted the worst roundabout in a survey by a UK insurance company. However the roundabout provides a better throughput of traffic than other designs and has an excellent safety record, since traffic moves too slowly to do serious damage in the event of a collision.
The Daily Omnivore 
Leave a comment