After having become very familiar with roundabouts in Portage la Prairie, with the city now boasting four of them, are people using their signal lights properly? 

Roundabout

RCMP Media Liaison officer Larry Neufeld explains some people are starting to use them in the correct fashion to provide other drivers with their intentions, which helps make the traffic flow move smoothly through them.

"With people who don't use their turn signals, the other drivers are ambiguous as to what's going on; if they can travel or not. So, they stop and then the person behind them stops, and it just creates a backlog. So. If you are travelling through the roundabouts and you are intending to make a turn, please use your turn signal. If you don't, there is actually a ticket for that, as well, and we'd rather not be sitting at a roundabout when we could be doing other things."

Larry NeufeldLarry Neufeld

Neufeld notes that when officers are sitting there in their cruisers, everybody suddenly remembers how to use that turn signal on the steering wheel. 

"So. we're just reminding people that use it, to provide information to people that are entering the roundabout that they are allowed to leave, and that'd be great." 

He notes some people have used roundabouts incorrectly. While inside the roundabout making their "round," when approaching an entrance to the roundabout where another car is waiting to drive in, some will often will stop and let them drive in. 

"Still, we see it quite frequently, that it's almost like we're too friendly. We want to let people access, but that's not the purpose of a roundabout. A roundabout is to keep traffic flowing. As soon as you stop, it stops and backs up everything else."

Neufeld adds a left blinker should never be used at a roundabout, also. 

"I don't don't know of any instances where you should use a left signal, unless you're traveling in Europe where you're going to need a left turn signal. It's amazing how many people do not use their turn signals when exiting the roundabout."