Milton Keynes......

Does Milton Keynes have too many roundabouts?

  • YES

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • NO

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    0
No, no, no, no .. yes .. no ...

You can always tell when a driver lives and/or works in Milton Keynes - they drive round roundabouts very quickly :D

(And they pay out a fortune on new tyres)
 
I feel qualified to answer this considering I spent the first 26 years of my life living there :lol: The answer is no. It is incredibly easy to get from one side of Milton Keynes to the other. The reason there are so many roundabouts is because the roads are based on a grid system, all with numbers such as V4 (vertical) and obviously the roads either side of that would be V3 and V5. And going the other way, H2 (horizontal) which is obviously sandwiched between H1 and H3. The roundabouts are placed at the junctions of these roads.

Take for instance my journey through MK on Wednesday. My destination was off of the V10. I entered MK on the A421, which incidentally becomes the H8 Standing Way through MK and drove merrily along, straight over the roundabouts until I turned left onto the V10 Brickhill Street. It couldn't have been easier :)

I live in fear of having to drive in Swindon (my nearest town) because there seems to be no rhyme nor reason as to it's layout :confused: At least in MK I'd never get lost :lol:
 
If you think MK has too many roundabouts, just try Swindon or Reading! The 'magic roundabout' in Swindon is infamous - you just have to put your foot down & drive straight through it or you'll never navigate it successfully! To be fair to Reading though, they don't have quite as many roundabouts as they used to have as in recent years they have ripped a few up to replace them with traffic lights (about 15-20 years ago they ripped out the traffic lights to replace them with roundabouts, but there you go.... :brows: )
 
I used to drive to SWINDON daily in a 52ft.... 44ton artic always thought it was then not bad to get around....

in the bronx we have hundreds of ramps the garage does well down here changing shockers and ball joints (don’t get excited they are on a vehicle :lol: )

I wrote once about the amount of lights in KAIRDIFF it was a toss up if the people from the valleys chose KAIRDIFF or BLACKPOOL for the illuminations.... :lol: :lol:
 
Milton Keynes beats everywhere in the proliferation of roundabouts stakes - as Griffin says, the whole road system in the town is designed as a grid, linked by roundabouts. And, yes, it works very well indeed - the traffic flows exceptionally freely.

When I first moved close to MK (33 years ago), Milton Keynes was a tiny village and the new town was just a twinkle in the planners' eyes - the place may be a laughing stock still in some quarters but it is actually very well planned.

I think poor old Diminuendo gets a bit fed up of cricking her neck every time we drive across town, though!!! (That's another thing, people who drive through MK on a regular basis have necks like Formula 1 drivers :lol: )
 
Originally posted by Shadow Leader@Aug 6 2005, 10:23 AM
If you think MK has too many roundabouts, just try Swindon or Reading! The 'magic roundabout' in Swindon is infamous - you just have to put your foot down & drive straight through it or you'll never navigate it successfully!
Click to expand...
I've lived near Swindon since October and had refused to drive into the town centre of it until last week when I plucked up the courage to tackle the 'Magic Roundabout'. I almost had a panic attack just thinking of it but in the end it was fairly traffic free and I managed it without any trouble at all. It still fills me with dread and it's not an experience I'm rushing to repeat but I was proud of me for doing it. Thank the lord I took my driving test in MK, it's got to be one of the easiest places to pass because of it's simplicity to drive in.
 
Griffin, the trick with the "Magic Roundabout" is to either stick your head down or close your eyes, & DRIVE! :D :lol:

(it's what I tend to do....)
 
Hey Griffin - where abouts in MK did you live??

I used to live a few miles away in Thornborough, then in Buckingham, so MK holds no fears for me!
 
I used to live in Bletchley. My last house was next to Windmill Hill golf course. Have been in MK again today, visiting my friends Sam & Mark in Medbourne which is one of the new bits by Shenley Wood.
 
The Trick with the Magic Roundabout is to ignore the central island and take the 5 outer circle as individual roundabouts. Imagine the section of road connecting each is 100 yards long instead of 10.
 
Originally posted by Griffin@Aug 6 2005, 12:08 PM
I've lived near Swindon since October and had refused to drive into the town centre of it until last week when I plucked up the courage to tackle the 'Magic Roundabout'. I almost had a panic attack just thinking of it .
Click to expand...
I bet Geoffrey wasn't too keen either

mr.jpg
 
From the BBC website ...

Roundabout magic

Clive Greenaway in a boat on a roundabout


By Giles Turnbull


Last week a relief road was named as one of Britain's best public buildings. It's not just the roads that get passions high, however. Meet the Roundabout Appreciation Society.
Are you a Dillon?

Failing that, you might be a False-start Florence. Or just a Zebedee.

Whatever your behaviour when you drive round a British roundabout, a group of roundabout enthusiasts have a name for you, culled from the characters of the classic Magic Roundabout TV series.

The secretive Roundabout Appreciation Society meets in and around Poole in Dorset. Members get together to discuss roundabout architecture, design, safety features and wildlife.

Roundabouts are twice as safe because they are usually slower, and the collisions are rarely head-on

But recently they've been thinking about the way people drive. Clive Greenaway, officially one of Britain's best drivers (he's passed every driving test it's possible to take) and a driving instructor with 25 years' experience, says that being aware of how other drivers treat roundabouts can be a big help to learners.

"At roundabouts, you have to watch out for different kinds of drivers," he says.

"You've got the False-Start Florences, who inch forward a bit but don't make the decision to pull out completely. The person behind them assumes they are going to go further, so accelerates and goes straight into the back of them.

"Roundabouts are designed by engineers so that there's a clear view of the traffic coming from the right. It should be easy to see if there's enough time to pull out, or not."

But the Florences are by no means the only bad characters on our nation's roundabouts. Members of the society have come up with more nicknames.

"There's the Zebedees, who bounce straight across some roundabouts. They don't use their mirrors properly.

"Also there's the Dillons, who drive straight into the middle of a roundabout because they didn't see it coming."

It all sounds terribly flippant, but Clive and his roundabout-obsessed friends have some serious points to make about the UK's 10,000 roundabouts.
 
Originally posted by Diamond Geezer+Aug 7 2005, 09:56 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Diamond Geezer @ Aug 7 2005, 09:56 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Griffin@Aug 6 2005, 12:08 PM
I've lived near Swindon since October and had refused to drive into the town centre of it until last week when I plucked up the courage to tackle the 'Magic Roundabout'. I almost had a panic attack just thinking of it .
Click to expand...
I bet Geoffrey wasn't too keen either

mr.jpg
[/b][/quote]
Oh my God! Just look at how scarey it is! I really do feel ill looking at it. Geoffrey coped with it admirably, aided by his new clutch and thermostat :D
 
Originally posted by Diamond Geezer@Aug 7 2005, 10:14 PM
Only been there once, 23 years ago, to see Queen at the bowl.
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How badly organised is the Bowl?? I went there to see Bon Jovi a few years back & it took us 3 hours to get from the motorway to the Bowl, it was a joke & we missed the support act (Matchbox 20) who I was wanting to see more than Jon Bon! Trying to get out was also a major nightmare, there were no officials (or very few, at least) helping people get out efficiently resulting in a crush of 60,000 people trying to get out of 2 gates. It was actually very frightening & I was on the verge of panicking - all you needed was one or two people to have a panic attack (which I'm amazed no-one seemed to, it was such a crush & for so long) & there would have been a stampede. It was a serious accident waiting to happen. I certainly won't entertain the idea of going to a gig there again.
 
Yeah well, we're all young once! Besides, he's really something decent to look at & they're very good live! :D
 
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