Ljubljana, Slovenia.
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Maribor, Slovenia.
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Portoroz, Slovenia.
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I got this question about roundabouts right.
I often complain about Slovenian drivers but it’s nothing personal. I just hate that they keep trying to kill me. My philosophy is: “Let’s share the road in peace, and not slam into each other in roundabouts” but judging by what I see every day on this country’s roads, I’m hopelessly in the minority.
I constantly see accidents on one of the three roundabouts that are on my way to work. And it’s always the same scene: two guys standing next to wrecked cars, yelling at each other about who’s to blame.
Judging by what I’ve seen, I’m also one of the few people who actually understands the dynamics of roundabouts. But I admit that my knowledge ends there.
In fact, after taking this online driving test (Slovene only) I now realize that I’m a disastrous driver as well. What can I say? I feel at home now.
Feel free to post your scores in the comments.
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hehe, failed
… N5/P26/K18/S120
I was once told by a librarian that roundabouts are easy, but, clearly, librarians are hiding something.
My knowledge is satisfactory.
2 wrong answers.
6 penalty points.
I am worried now Michael. I think I am using same roundabouts as you do
Minority… Well I’m way past twenty and i still don’t have a license, which i think is the smallest minority in all of slovenia, probably one of europes most cardependant countries..
After years of hearing about such things, I finally saw a car driving THE WRONG WAY around the roundabout I pass through twice every day. THE WRONG WAY. (okay, THE BRITISH WAY).
The car had Croatian plates.
According to this, everyone thinks they’re an above-average driver. Glad to hear you’re cured of that, Michael.
Yikes… Failed… 5 wrong aswers and 16 penalty points… Given those three I earned for DUI, it back to the old drawing board for me…
DUI? Sounds like Paris Hilton?
I am not going to do it since I passed my test last October and
a) should still have most of the right answers
b) probably don’t know what all the Slovenian expressions mean.
But we do have many roundabouts here and I am the only one blinking when exiting, so that no one has to wonder whether to wait for me or not. I seem to be one of the few NOT blinking when entering, but that is not relevant (though clearly an offence) anyway…
13 wrong answers ;o) Considering I don´t know slovenian thats a good score…or perhaps not…
Yeah, roundabouts are fun. But this test is flawed too, you don’t enter a roundabout with your turn signal on.
wrong answers: 9
penalty points: 33
new vocabulary to learn: approx 5000 words
car to buy before I visit Slovenia next time…
wrong answers: 2
penalty points: 6
@ rox: Sure you do, if you’re planning on leaving the roundabout at the first possible exit, you should enter it with your (right) indicator blinking.
(Though I’m not sure if you can enter it with your left indicator turned on if you’re *not* intending to leave the roundabout at the first exit: this is how it’s done in the UK (with left/right reversed of course) …)
I got all questions right, but I only got my driving licence three years ago, so it’s all still quite fresh in my mind!
@alcessa: You’ve caught me!
Pengovsky: doing what exactly?
Common, tell us! 
Alex: that is not what we learn in Germany
No blinking upon entering at all is what I was told. Though it does sound logical: that way, everyone knows you are going to get out soon.
I was told no blinking upon entering even in Slovenia.
But blinking upon exiting is obligatory, yet people gladly ignore that. 
I won’t even post my scores, out of fear that it might be used against me in a court of law one day. But I can confirm that more people blink upon entering than exiting, in my experience.
Also, I realize now that I need to get off the road.
2 wrong: the depth of the profile of tires and a sign. :p
As a beginner, I have already learnt some very useful things:
a) Do not drive within speed limits as people will be rude to you.
b) Do not expect everyone else to know about your right of way, too. Watch out. Do not assume people actually stop at the sign saying so.
c) Do not trust people indicating they will leave the roundabout at the next exit. They may skip that one, drive past you, still blinking, and exit at the next one.
c) Do not assume you can park in oversized parking lots. You can’t.
3 wrong, one about the depth of tire profile, one about how long one is considered a young driver. The third, I don’t know which one it was.
Hmm. I got 9 wrong. Mostly they were the traffic sign questions. 2 questions on Distance of the signs. 2 wrong on the blue arrow signs, I reversed them. The blue car sign, and the white circle sign. I managed to get all the traffic cop questions as well as the right of way questions correct, all except one. I was wondering if someone could explain this one to me. It’s question 16 on the test.
Ali smete zaviti desno pred rdeÄ?im vozilom? The answer key says yes.
Looking at the picture though I don’t see how this is true. I don’t see any signs stating which is the main road, as well as the other car is already at the intersection, but the POV car is not yet at the intersection, plus you are making a right. I would figure the car going straight goes first mainly due to he made it to the intersection first. Anyone care to explain this to me?
At any rate I don’t think I did too bad…never studied a slovene driving book, and had to translate everything first. Some questions were hard to understand.
Oops. I forgot to ask…I’m translating that question correctly, right? It’s asking “Can you turn right before the red car?”
Michael: they simple meant the rule “right before left” (or whatever you call it in Engish). You know, this one: in an intersection of main roads the car on your right side has the right of way.
I didn’t pass either. I had no idea about distances between traffic signs and their point of reference (except 80/200 meters) and the policeman would make me stop in both cases.
alcessa: Yeah I was thinking the right before left rule…but in America this is true in most cases only when both cars reach the intersection at the same time.
If car A is to the left of car B but car A reaches the intersection first (i.e. at least a few seconds prior), car A has the right of way. (That’s true when every direction has a stop sign, and uncontrolled intersections, otherwise it’s like you said right before left). I guess it’s just a bad illustration then IMO, because it looks as if “your” car is still driving up to the intersection in question 16.
Also I believe if this were a question on a US drivers test this questions answer would be no. I would say that because usually vehicles turning onto a road have to yield to vehicles going straight (unless there are signs stating otherwise)
Although you hardly ever see completely uncontrolled intersections like this picture illustrates in the US.
I must admit I never heard about the timing aspect of such situations: I’d have waited (or driven if on the right) regardless of such minimal distances…
(I’ve just returned from killing a virus
which caused Firefox to crash while writing this?!?!? Is this a sign I should keep quiet?
)
There is one thing about such tests: they do not want to know about all those finer points, do they.
Well, not sure how it came about, but I think it would alleviate certain situations. Like if there is a 4-way intersection, and 4 cars arrive at relatively the same time. In this case who would go first?
Everybody has a car to the right! Here the 1st car that arrived makes sense…then the rest do the “car to the right has right of way”.
We were told in such a situation they need to communicate (gestures) and one of them has to clearly give ROW to the driver on their LEFT.
Also, I learnt that in an intersection of main roads, it is always right before left, regardless of where someone is heading. If you are driving on a main road and want to turn left/right onto a “non-main road/road with red lights everywhere” (sorry about clumsiness of expression), then you need to let everyone else going or driving straight forward to pass/do so.
Actually I looked it up and asked another person, and actually for “uncontrolled” intersections in the USA it is just driver to the right has ROW. Although when I asked about the exact situation illustrated in question 16 it did make them pause to think who has ROW. Personally the rare few times I run into these types of intersections I yield regardless and let the others go.
Yeah, it would be the same situation in the US as you explained in the first part, if in fact all 4 did arrive at the same EXACT time. But that is a rare occurance. But if somebody arrives a little sooner, that rule pretty much negates everybody having to wave gestures around like crazy people.
Hmm the second half of your second paragraph has left me completely baffled. Not sure what you’re saying there?? I’ll answer as much as I can.
Intersections of main roads is relatively the same as you explained it. Regardless of where someone is heading it is right before left (as long as a sign/traffic light isn’t telling you otherwise. That being said, you will never have two main roads, or one main road and one non-main road intersecting in the USA without any traffic signs/lights on any of the corners. That’s just never done. At least one road will have a traffic sign/signal. The only place you will see no traffic signs at all is in a complete residential area with 2 intersecting non-main roads, with speed limits 25 mph or less
The part about “red lights everywhere” has me confused…perhaps you can explain that differently so I could understand. Right now I take that as 4 red lights in every direction…so that means nobody is going anywhere.
The only legal move in that situation is people making right turns on red..as long as there is not a sign prohibiting that. Left turns always have to yield to everybody else unless you have a green arrow traffic light stating otherwise.
oops or if you’re in Slovenia and you have one of the main road signs that goes to the left.
Oh, that is just my talent for explaining things badly, don’t you mind :-)…
A simple situation of what I meant would be: in an intersection, traffic lights will enable traffic on one road and close it for the other. Now, if I want to turn left on the road with green lights and there is someone approaching and he wants to drive straight forward - this is a typical situation where the person driving straight forward drives first. Because they are not turning. And,after having waited for the straight-forward-driver while I am turning left, I have to stop for pedestrians, who are crossing the street and basically also moving straight forward. I know you know this: but what is important here is we have 2 roads crossing and basically, traffic is going on on one only, on the other one it has been stopped. So: 1 active road and 2 cars, one driving straight forward, the other one turning. Straight forward goes first.
The situation on the picture in the test is a different one: you have 2 cars on 2 “active” roads - no sign as to on which the traffic has to stop. This is where the right one drives first, regardless of his direction.
ah. ok. That is what I thought you were trying to explain..just the red lights comment threw me for a loop.
I have one question though, is it common to find intersections with no signs whatsoever in Europe. I’ve driven a little bit over there but I don’t remember seeing any. IMO these uncontrolled streets are rare in the USA, mainly because I think there are so many bad drivers here, and not having these types of intersections probably diminishes the number of accidents.
I live in a small German town and we do have one or two, yes, so it is “back to basics” sometimes. Otherwise, not. In Germany.
In Slovenia, I grew up in a region that had only one intersection with traffic lights, so most of it it was pretty much the basics: -) But things have changed there, too. Anyone?
4 failed, and I didn’t get license yet. Actually in Slovenia the roundabout thing is mostly resolved by going straight through the center of it, unless there is a statue there. You can check it every day in the two or three there are in BTC
Though, pls tell me the actual exam has more substance to study than those questions!
I was definitely taught that you’re meant to indicate that you’re leaving a roundabout at the first exit by entering it with your right indicator turned on.
OK, found something to back me up:
tecajcpp.com/cpp/krizisca.php
– “VkljuÄ?imo se brez smernika, razen Ä?e bomo križiÅ¡Ä?e zapustili na prvem izvozu.”
It could be one of the newer rules perhaps?
@ Michael N: Intersections of two ‘main’ roads like that are very rare. There’s an occasional one here and there mainly it seems so that they can continue testing your skills in practical driving exams. They seem to be placed in rather strategic locations in Ljubljana: on a very steep hill so that you have to use the hand brake if you stop and have to think about far too many things at once; in a very crowded car park where you can hardly see which cars are driving and which are parked and where these right-has-right-of-way intersections follow each other about three times in a short distance and the road is also too narrow for two cars to meet; and in one maze of one-way streets where you also have to be extra careful to know which side of the road you’re turning into (when turning left into a one-way street you have to turn to the very left then move gradually to the right). Generally a lot of fun …
In the case you’ve taken issue with in the on-line exam, you have the right of way EVEN IF the other vehicle came to the intersection before you. The other vehicle has to wait until you have crossed the intersection.
There are no four-way stops in Slovenia or the UK, and I haven’t ever seen one anywhere else in Europe either.
@ Disablez: Yes, the real exams are a bastion of wisdom and clever questions. You get asked very important things about the maximum dimensions of roof cargo and trailers in relation to the vehicle, the maximum length of articulated lorries and the different lengths the two dimmed headlights (left and right) are allowed to illuminate on the road. And let’s not forget the examiners’ favourite word, aquaplaning, and the various distances and measurements you need to memorise (and forget after the exam) about it.
But to be serious - there are more ’situation’ questions asked than in the on-line test, and fewer sign distances (though you tend to get a few of those as well).
3 wrongs… my knowledge is satisfactory!?