mjr wrote: ↑29 Jul 2022, 10:06pm
thirdcrank wrote: ↑29 Jul 2022, 3:15pm
I presume this stuck in my mind because it seemed so odd (and the fact that I can remember our Co-op number from the 1940s but not what I had for breakfast today, etc.)
The setting for this was that it was only in the late 1950s that there was any significant move to modernise the road network and roundabouts were part of that. Initially, there was no settled priority at roundabouts. Perhaps there's somebody with a Highway Code of that era.
Your memory seems correct:
The Highway Code - edition from 1959 –
https://normandyhistorians.co.uk/hwc/1959hwc/p7.html
The Highway Code - edition from 1968 –
https://normandyhistorians.co.uk/hwc/1968hwc/p9.html
Thanks for those links.
Re There once being no general priority at roundabouts, while it may seem incredible now, I thought it was general knowledge.
I think it's also generally accepted that there's no "priority from the right" rule in the UK of the type applying in some other countries. When it was suggested that there was above it was rightly dismissed. I regret making my "roundabouts" post now because it just took the thread even further off track. I wish I could remember where and when I read about the judgment dealing with UK roundabouts. I appreciate it sounds like some sort of urban myth but I'm sure I read it. It must have been in the couple of years after I passed my test when I was a student. It won't have been in a formal law report but more likely in some newspaper or mag in the library reading room.
The point in 2022 must be that priorities will be decided by current rules.
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It has occurred tome that there must be contemporaneous comment in Hansard and I've found several reports from the 1950s and 1960s and these two seem representative:
In 1956 a transport ministry spokesman was firmly against a rule establishing general priorities at roundabouts.
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hans ... oundabouts
"On this day" - 29 July in 1966, a ministry spokesman was pressed to announce the outcome of the experiments and consultation being undertaken about this and stonewalled
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1 ... ritySigns)
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Although I've found several entries in Hansard - including some duplication - about the protracted experiments into priority at roundabouts, I've been unable to find anything about the date or particulars of the introduction of the modern rule of the normal priority being with traffic already on the roundabout.