When I lived in Australia—and before that, New Zealand—I remember there being roundabouts everywhere. They’re a cheap method of keeping order on the road at intersections because they don’t require electricity to fuel it like traffic lights do.

In France roundabouts can be seen everywhere too. The two road signs (above and below) are what you will see before coming to a roundabout. The above pic reads: You do not have priority. The pic below means to Yield or Giveway.

In Australia and New Zealand roundabouts are easy thoroughfare. There are the same number of lanes in the roundabout as there are out of it. If you enter the roundabout in the right lane you must follow that out, and vice versa if you are in the left lane. In most cases there is only one lane which makes for getting in and out of a roundabout simple work.

Easy thoroughfare however, can hardly be the name to describe what takes place at a roundabout in France (and for much of Europe). Driving through a roundabout, or rond point (as it is called in France), requires one to be more daring than usual. As this pic shows, entering a roundabout can sometimes be difficult to get into and also just as difficult to get out of. The rule is: if your exit point is the next exit point from where you entered you must drive in the lane on the far right. If your exit point is not the next exit point from where you entered you must drive your car into the left lane (although in some cases there can be up to five lanes) and when your exit point nears, drive towards it and then exit.

But it’s the “driving towards it and exiting” that can be aggravating especially to drivers new to this system. If you are in the right lane while in the roundabout you must giveway to anyone driving in the left. In other words those in the left lanes have priority over those in the right lanes. Which translates that if you’re in the right lane and have not exited the nearest exit point but have continued to drive further, be prepared to slam on the breaks for drivers in the left lane wanting to exit. But to the uninitiated the rules hardly look like those described above; it’s more like what the leader of the Scorpions says when explaining the rules to Danny Zuko before they’re about to race cars: “the rules are, there ain’t no rules.”