Handsworth roundabout

While we are on about this slip road (I was going to make a thread about this) what's with the new traffic lights on it? It's still a give way but the lights are a few metres back! No lights on any other part of the roundabout!

As has been said, there's nothing wrong at that roundabout in using the right hand lane to turn right.

Because, however, others may be in the left lane going exactly to the same exit you should expect traffic on your left all the way around.

The way that the arrows are painted on the approach to the roundabout is certainly non-standard and an instructor should be prepared to explain why it is marked up like that: purely because years ago, without the additional slip road into Asda (from the townbound on-ramp back onto the Parkway) your route off the roundabout in the right hand lane would regularly have been blocked by the queue of traffic backed up from the filter lane for Asda.

Once Asda built the additional ramp, the arrows could have been changed back to how they had been but they never were.

Drivers, even learners on test, have to be able to read road signs and markings - the "independent driving" addition to the test is meant to test this independence, not surprisingly. That doesn't come easy if the instructor is still instructing and not allowing the driver to get on with it when appropriate.

I get your point DT Ralge about the independent driving part of the test, not just for passing my test but I want to be a competent driver.

I think the main problem in this instance was that he didn't explain anything to me and I was just left bewildered. He certainly did not give me the impression that this was an easy mistake to make, or that the right-hand lane could have been used.