Are the UK Highway Code rules regarding roundabouts sufficient?

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You're viewing the code in your mind incorrectly. For any individual driver in a vehicle, there is the road they are on, and there is the roundabout, period. You don't consider any of the other roads. Your intersection is the one the road you are on to the roundabout.

As illustrated, the intersection is not the entire round-about (left), but only where your road intersects the round-about (right), which makes it behave just like any other intersection.

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Now that I've described it, how do you feel about the code, as written? If there is a vehicle on the roundabout, it will either be ahead of your intersection (to the left of you) and you can 'disregard it'; or it will be across the roundabout from you (in front of you) and you can (see below*) 'disregard it'; or it will be coming up to your intersection (to your right), in which case the car already on the roundabout has priority.

*Note if it is a small round, or the speed is great, you may have to consider a vehicle technically in front of you, as coming from your right, which it will be very soon. That is part of driving defensively.

Look at it this way. Let us suppose you have two roads, Apple Street and Pear Road. They each carry two way traffic. They cross each other. At the intersection of Apple St. and Pear Rd. there is a four way stop. Four cars pull up, one in each direction. Each road segment has three possible directions of continuing traffic flow. Left turn, right turn, and straight ahead.

Now, let's say that the designers decide to put a roundabout in that intersection. Each part of Apple St ends in a stop sign at the round. Each part of Pear Rd. also ends in a stop sign. Four cars pull up to the stop signs. How many directions can each car go from the stop? One and only one. To the left. If each car is fully stopped, in my example, how many cars are approaching each of the four intersections from the right? None. Each intersection is essentially a T, with one way traffic across the top. All four cars could go. Let's say only one goes around its corner to the left. Now there is one car on the roundabout and as it approaches each of the remaining intersections, it will be the car on the right.

The hard part about roundabouts, and why they ABSOLUTELY suck rocks.... Is that even with stop signs (and they are usually yields, not stops) a roundabout almost always forces merging, and today's youth simply seem to not be taught that skill.

I sincerely hope this helps you.

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