Here is a transcription of the video.
Hi everybody welcome along Sean here your RSA approved driving instructor with passfirst time.ie.Welcome to part two in our series on roundabouts and last lesson we took a look at blockers this lesson it's going to be short and sweet but i think it could be one of the most important lessons we will do on roundabouts and from teaching people every day of the week how to use roundabouts and preparing people for the driving test and how to use roundabouts i find this is the single biggest change you could make to help you improve your roundabouts, and that change is to adjust your speed and then via the speed adjustment because you're going slower give yourself more time to check out your roundabout and decide what you are going to do, remember if you half the speed on approach to a roundabout you have twice as much time to check out the roundabout and make sure it's safe to either enter or if necessary stop, as you come into the roundabout so let's take a look uh first of all we have some live clips coming up in just a sec, but first of all a little animation, here we're coming into a roundabout uh it doesn't matter where you're going in this case we happen to be turning left the two areas we need to to focus on today are number one the speed you come into the roundabout at for the last couple of meters you should be moving really slowly, you want to get all the work done at least two or three car lengths before the roundabout so that your clutch is up, your gears are changed, your work is done and you are totally focusing on observing the roundabout and looking either for oncoming traffic or like the last lesson looking for a blocker that might give you an opportunity to enter the roundabout, if you are moving too fast at this particular point you won't have enough time to look and your decision will be rushed and very often then you might even have to stop up at the mouth of the roundabout even though in reality if you had checked early enough and made sure it was safe you could have rolled into the roundabout without stopping, and remember that's what roundabouts are all about they're all about keeping traffic uh moving so let's take a look at clip number one here first of all and see myself in action coming into a roundabout.
We're approaching a roundabout and the important thing is that you give yourself time to slow down and time to look and check if it's safe to enter so we're slowing down glancing right already we see oncoming traffic from the right so we know we're going to have to pause at the line you pause at the line and you're looking for the next window, the grey car going around as a blocker gives the car next to us and ourselves a clear chance to go into the roundabout safely This next roundabout you're coming off of a road with a 60k limit slowing down early is even more important because you're coming down from a higher speed make sure you're changing your gears and for the last 10 meters or so that you're slowing down getting those gears down getting the clutch up so you're focusing totally and looking to the right as you approach the roundabout and that way you can decide whether it's safe to go in or not, nice and calmly and make a very healthy decision as to whether it's safe to enter the roundabout .
This roundabout very busy so you're automatically going to slow because the traffic in front of you will be slowing, so in a lot of ways it makes the roundabout maybe a little easier what you have to concentrate on now is your observation you watch what's happening in front of you and you're glancing to the right already looking for a flow of traffic coming from the right or maybe traffic stopping on your right because of a blocker or some other reason for the traffic to stop and maybe give you a window an opportunity to go in, it looks very clear you're rolling and you're at a speed that's suitable for the roundabout and as long as it looks safe and you can go in you safely enter the roundabout and check your mirrors and leave and equally you maintain a speed that's suitable for the roundabout.
Now hopefully you found that helpful, i could sum it up by saying adjust your speed on the way in to give yourself more time to look and check out whether you can keep flowing into the roundabout or not, as well as glancing to the right make sure you're focusing in front of you just in case the car in front of you stops suddenly or anything like that don't just focus your observation in one direction that is very important as well, but a bit of forward planning it will vary the speed you go in at will vary depending on the size of the roundabout naturally the smaller the roundabout the slower you will go the bigger the roundabout you can increase that speed but make sure it's a speed that you can look you can make a decision and that you're not rushing it and that if it's good you flow into that roundabout nicely and equally if there is traffic coming from your right and you're not able to enter safely you can recognize that early and come to a nice calm stop.
So if you have any thoughts on this please leave them below if there's anything i forgot any suggestions or ideas
We're going to continue our series on the roundabout and the next lesson we will take a look at lanes and what lane you should be in on the roundabout so if you haven't subscribed as yet we make these videos we bring out one every week so if you are preparing for your test or even if you're learning to drive you should find these beneficial and subscribe to the channel log on to our website pathforcetime.ie where there's lots more tips and advice on the driving test and learning to drive that's it for me a safe driving if you are doing your test over the next couple of weeks as always all the best with the test and i will see you in the next video