I arrived early at the maths building so I could print some stuff and make some copies, and both the printer and the copier are out of toner, so I'll post my long-awaited (and no more than mildly interesting) rant about British driving rules.

A couple of days ago as I was biking to class I came to an intersection of two major roads where the traffic light wasn't working. I followed the lessons I was taught in driver's ed and treated it as a four way stop. However, the cars on the street crossing mine just kept zooming on through without even slowing down. I had to wait for a breakin the traffic (which took a while) to cross. I was very confused.

I asked some British people what the heck was going on, and most were equally confused. One guy, however, hit upon an explanation: in this country, a traffic light that's not working defaults to a roundabout, not a four way stop. (This actually explains why there are no stop signs at all in this country.) And the rules for a roundabout are sketchy at best. The British person argued that roundabouts are better than four-way stops because you get higher throughput. I countered that you're much more likely to get smashed into by an oncoming car traveling at a high speed.

Also baffling to me is that if there's an intersection between a large road and a small road and they want to put a traffic light so pedestrians can cross the large road, they'll situate the light precisely so that when cars are stopped at it they block the traffic from the small road. So I can't figure out how cars ever turn onto large roads.