Right-of-way and intersections
You are inside a roundabout and realize you have just gone past the exit you wanted. What should you do?
- Keep going around until you come back to your exit. Correct answer
- Stop and back up along the roundabout to the exit you missed.
- Turn around and take the short way round, against the flow, to your exit.
Why
A roundabout has one direction and no reverse, and the handbook gives a missed exit the simplest possible answer: continue around until you return to your exit. Backing up is ruled out because you are told not to stop inside a roundabout at all, and going the short way round is ruled out because traffic travels counterclockwise around the central island. So a missed exit costs you one lap and nothing else, while the other two answers put you against the flow. Two habits make the lap easy: signal when you change lanes or exit, and on a multilane roundabout pick your entry lane by where you are going, because that is the lane you will need on the way out.
Where this comes from
California Driver's Handbook, DL 600 ENGLISH (REV. 6/2025). The correct answer is Keep going around until you come back to your exit..