Blackburn with Darwen driving test centre

Roundabouts are the defining feature. Four of the five practice loops on this page carry eight of them, and three of the ones you meet are mini-roundabouts rather than full ones. That mix is the difficulty. A mini-roundabout is still a roundabout: you give way to the right, you signal for the exit, and you go round the painted circle rather than over it. Drivers who treat the small ones as give-way junctions collect faults in a place where they would never expect them.

The rest of the layout is ordinary in a way that rewards ordinary discipline. There are seven sets of traffic lights across the loops and ten signalled crossings, but only one piece of traffic calming and four give-way lines. In other words the junctions are controlled, and the marks come from lane choice and observation rather than from tight spaces.

Speed is the second issue. Three quarters of the road length is at 30 mph, an eighth at 40, and there is a short stretch at the national limit where the loops touch the fast road network. The changes come at the edges of Darwen, where a built-up street opens out with the sign on a bend, and the car needs to be at the new limit before the sign rather than after it.

Blackburn Road, Roman Road, Branch Road and Duchess Street carry the town-centre part. Manoeuvres tend to be asked for on the quieter terraced streets off these, around Hollins Grove Street and Sandy Lane, where the gradient is often part of the problem and a handbrake used properly saves you.