#mini roundabouts

Three cars draw up to the mini roundabout at exactly the same moment. There is a pregnant pause where you can actually see each person computing the highway code, ‘Give way to the right, give way to the right, oh, but look, he is also giving way to the right, and so am I, and so is she so who goes first?’ And then someone eventually breaks it and I love the awful tension before that moment - My bloke considers this to be the perfect time to firmly establish his alpha-ness in the world. He claims that without fail it is always he who breaks the stalemate, that he is unaffected by doubts or manners or fears of a three way crash, no, he thinks only, ‘I’m the best so I’m going first.’ 

I always think that there must be a reason that these three people got here at exactly the same moment, that they really ought to get out of their cars and shake hands, celebrating chance, or fate, or irritating events that make them late for work. When stalemate happens the centre of the roundabout should start flashing and a bell ring as though they have hit the jackpot and then a giant arrow on the roundabout spins and selects at random the person who is to proceed first.