A SHOCKING video captured the moment a “downright stupid” driver cut across a roundabout the wrong way to shave a view seconds off their commute.
Richard Chaplin, from Plymouth, Devon, was on his way to work on Tuesday morning last week (NOV 14) when he spotted the impatient driver.
Motorcyclist Richard was following the long queue of traffic through Marsh Mills Industrial estate, Plymouth, when a red Fiat Stilo turned into the right hand exit instead of following the roundabout.
Road safety campaigners have slammed the driver’s actions as “downright stupid”.
The driver would have been through the traffic in a matter of seconds, but instead decided to put their life and other lives at risk.
In 2015 there were 14,424 road accidents on roundabouts in Britain.
The clip begins with Richard approaching the roundabout on his motorcycle, and a long queue of traffic can be seen up ahead in the lane going straight ahead.
As Richard gets closer to the roundabout, a red Fiat Stilo can be seen pulling out and turning to the right.
Richard’s disbelief can be heard when he says: “Oh f***, come on, seriously?”
The impatient driver takes the risk, and instead of following the roundabout round, he turns off into the right hand exit.
Although the driver indicated, he still could have put other motorists at risk as another vehicle appeared and didn’t look to the right.
Richard uploaded the video to a Facebook dash cam group on Tuesday (NOV 14) with the caption: “Nobody has any patience any more. Took me less than 10 seconds to negotiate the roundabout.”
Speaking on the day (NOV 14), Richard said: “My first thought was ‘Obviously you’re too important to queue with the rest of us then?’
“If someone had been joining the roundabout from the entrance to my right, there could have been a collision. I know I only look to the left when I enter a roundabout myself.”
Richard added that the roundabout is generally busy in the morning. He added: “It’s usually worse than that, there’s a lot of construction going on around there and it’s a rat-run to a few different industrial estates. The thing is, it was one of the less busy days and he could have negotiated the roundabout properly in about five seconds if he waited like the rest of us.”
A spokesman for road safety campaign group SWD Media, said: “It is by far one of the most shocking pieces of driving I have seen in a while. Luckily no one was coming the other way. However, all he had to do was wait about 10 seconds and he could have went the correct way.
“Hopefully this driver will see how downright stupid he was in doing this and think twice at the next roundabout, as next time might not be so lucky. It’s just a shame the police were not there to see it.”
Social media users were quick to comment on the video and share their disbelief.
Laura Youmans said: “What a wally.”
Aziz KhanI added: “I see this a lot with mini roundabouts but that’s two I’ve seen recently now on larger roundabouts.”
Paul Sheward joked: “Ah, the “continental approach” to safely negotiating a roundabout.”
While Paul DeGiorgio said simply: “Bloody crazy.”
