Joe Bennett: Some things are almost impossible to understand - but not roundabouts

Firefighters work to extinguish a blaze at a shopping centre in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, after a rocket attack. Photo / AP

OPINION
So there I was heading to the supermarket in Ferrymead in my excitingly modern car that somehow knows when to turn the lights and the wipers on, and that will tell me if I am about to crash, and that apparently can even make and answer phone calls, though I have yet to meet the phone call that I need to make while driving, and I was thinking thoughts.

And the first thought I was thinking was how the Supreme Court of the most technologically advanced country on Earth had decided to send women back down the dimly lit alley of illegality to get an abortion, an alley in which many women will die just as they used to in the good old days, and all in the name of Jesus.

Tutting to myself and shaking my head, I slowed the fancy car as I approached a roundabout and wondered when we as a species would ever shake off superstition, and decided that the evidence suggested that we would not.

Ah well, I said, and drew to a halt. Two vehicles ahead of me were waiting to enter the roundabout, their little indicators winking cheerfully. No one was in a hurry. All was well. I had the mental space to think and I steered my thoughts elsewhere in search of entertainment, but they landed on Ukraine.

The vehicle two ahead of me slipped neatly onto the roundabout, seamlessly joining the traffic flow. We who were waiting moved one space forward.

Ukraine. What can one say about such utter bastardry, such brazen, state-run theft and slaughter?

Well, one can say anything one likes but it will make no difference. We're back with the age-old problem of evil for which history suggests there is no answer other than violence. Evil has no conscience and listens to no reason.

People lay flowers for the victims of the Russian rocket attack at a shopping centre in Kremenchuk, Ukraine. Photo / AP

It is selfish, dishonest and cruel. To the majority of us it is incomprehensible. Which is why it takes us by surprise. We are all of us Neville Chamberlain.

The car in front of me was a Beetle, the updated descendant of the car that Hitler commissioned.

He was covering Germany with autobahns and he wanted a car built that would transport a family of five along those autobahns at 100km/h in comparative comfort and at minimal cost. Hitler was dead by the time production began in earnest, but it became the most popular car of all time. Evil can still have good ideas.

The Beetle pulled onto the roundabout leaving only me in the queue. I looked to my right. That's the genius of roundabouts: there's just the one thing to do, one rule so simple that a child could follow it. Give way to your right.

A car that's circulating has priority. If there's nothing circulating, circulate yourself.

There was no car to my right. I eased onto the roundabout and became the circulator with priority. What could be easier? Compare it with an intersection overseen by traffic lights.

A red light's a bully. It defies our wish to carry on our all-important progress down a road, requiring us to stop against our will. So people accelerate to beat it, to run the light. Hence accidents.

And when we do reluctantly stop at a red light, we chafe and fret. Often a green light is showing for traffic that isn't there, but we are obliged to remain stationary to no purpose.

Our autonomy has been taken away. No wonder, then, that when the light turns green we gun the engine, race one another. It's an expression of our frustration, and a reassertion of self.

But no one resents a roundabout. The need to stop is obvious. And we're free to go just when we deem it safe. With self-interest comes responsibility. We defer to the rights of others so that we in turn will be deferred to. I've never seen an accident on a roundabout.

I passed the first two exits unimpeded, flicked my indicator to the left and was away down Ferry Rd towards the supermarket, wondering at a masterpiece of traffic engineering that so splendidly accommodates the nature of our species, but none the wiser as to how to solve the problem of the brutal Putin or the mad American Christians.