Roundabouts for learners: how to drive Dublin's circles

If you learn to drive on the northwest side of Columbus, you learn roundabouts. The City of Dublin's roundabout at Avery Road, Rings Road and Cara Road opened in August 2025, and a learner who steers around every circle gives up a lot of Dublin.

A roundabout runs on one rule and a few habits. The rule comes from the Ohio Driver Manual; the habits come from teaching them every week.

Traffic in the circle goes first

A roundabout is a circular intersection where vehicles travel counterclockwise around a raised center island, and entering traffic yields to circulating traffic. You slow down, you look left, and you enter when the lane is clear.

Yield does not always mean stop. If nothing is coming from the left, you roll in without stopping. New drivers tend to stop at every entry out of caution, which surprises the car behind them. Slow to a speed you could stop from, look, and go when it is clear.

Pick your lane before you enter

On the approach, read the signs and the arrows painted on the road. They tell you which lane goes where. The manual's warning is the one that catches people: you cannot change lanes once you are in the roundabout.

So the decision happens before the yield line. Turning right or going straight usually means the right lane; going straight or left usually means the left lane. The arrows on each approach are the authority, because two-lane roundabouts differ.

Count the exits

The manual gives the count every learner should memorize:

• 1st exit: turn right.
• 2nd exit: go straight.
• 3rd exit: turn left.
• 4th exit: a U-turn, back the way you came.

Say your exit number out loud on the approach. “Second exit” keeps your eyes on the count instead of on the car beside you.

Keep moving and signal out

Once you are in, keep moving. Do not stop inside the circle and do not change lanes. Drive to your exit, turn on the right signal, and leave. The signal tells the driver waiting at the next entry that the gap behind you is real.

Keep the three-to-four-second following distance from the manual's stopping rules inside the circle too. A roundabout is slow, but it is slow in a curve, and the car ahead may brake for a pedestrian at the exit crosswalk, who has the right of way.

A practice loop

Find a single-lane roundabout on a quiet morning. Enter, go all the way around and leave by the road you came in on (the 4th exit where the roundabout has four legs); do it from each approach. With one lane there is no lane choice, so the learner can concentrate on the yield and the signal.

Then move to a two-lane roundabout at the same quiet hour. Approach, name the lane, name the exit, drive it, and come back around to try the other lane. Ten minutes of loops beats a month of passing through.

Our instructors do this with students on driving lessons and in the teen course across Dublin and the northwest suburbs. Before the test, read the road test guide: the examiner scores turns, signals and the correct lane, everything a roundabout asks of you.

Where this comes from

Every rule in this note was read on the State of Ohio's own pages on November 1, 2026. If a page changes, the page wins; check it before you rely on a date or a number.

• Ohio Driver Manual, section 5: learning to drive (publicsafety.ohio.gov)
• Ohio Driver Manual, section 4: rules of the road (publicsafety.ohio.gov)

The Dublin roundabout is from the City of Dublin's news page, read the same day.