Cardiff driving test centre

Four in five tagged roads within a couple of miles of the centre are 20 mph. The rest is mostly 30, with a trace of 40 and 50 and no dual carriageway anywhere. The driving is slow, dense and junction-heavy rather than fast. There are around sixty-five sets of traffic lights in that radius and seventeen mini-roundabouts, and the mini-roundabouts are where marks go. They arrive quickly, the give way is to the right, and a hesitant approach on a 20 mph road holds up everything behind you.

The bigger roundabouts have names your instructor will use. Gabalfa Interchange is the one to respect, a multi-lane junction where the lane has to be chosen well before you reach it. Thornhill Road, The Gateway and King George V Drive are more ordinary but still need a decision made early.

The street names are Welsh and the signs are bilingual, Welsh above English. Parc Tŷ Glas, Tŷ Glas Road, Rhyd-Y-Penau Road and Heathwood Road all turn up in the practice loops on this page. If you learned in England the words look unfamiliar, but each sign means what the English underneath it says, and the shapes and symbols are the ones you already revised.

Forty-three schools sit inside the same area. From about half past three the residential streets fill with parked cars and children, and 20 mph stops being a formality. The loops here run ten to twelve kilometres and are heavy with right turns, which is the shape of the driving: turn, junction, turn again.