Swindon drivers might be blase about it now, but the Magic Roundabout can still cause many people surprise and even fear.
Especially if they’re from a country where a roundabout, let alone a six-island junction, is rare, like the US.
A poster to Reddit sub-group UK Casual posted an aerial picture of the interchange saying: “Noticed a lot of Americans on here recently, so thought I’d drop this to spook them.”
It earned a reaction from drivers on both sides of the Atlantic.
One said: “My dad used to work for an American company in Swindon, he said they once had some Americans come over that drove from the airport. When they got to the Magic Roundabout they called his office and asked someone to come and get them.”
One US respondent had a plan to avoid the issue of the central anti-clockwise island: “I am American and I am shook. But why would you even enter the middle roundabout at all? Can you not just go around the perimeter to your exit? I’m so confused.”
In 2007, the roundabout was voted the seventh most-feared road junction in the country in a survey by the Highway Agency.
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