On this day in auto history – March 10th

Wed 10th Mar 2021

It was on this day in 1969 that Britain’s - and possibly the world’s - first mini-roundabout came into operation in Peterborough.

The brainchild of renowned traffic engineer Frank Blackmore, the revolutionary junction - close to Peterborough’s London Road football ground - quickly became known locally as ‘the pimple’.

Keen to see his new vision work amid initial confusion, Blackmore would station himself at the side of the road armed with a loud-hailer to bellow instructions at bewildered drivers.

Though ‘the pimple’ was eventually replaced by traffic lights as part of a regeneration project, such was its success, its example was copied in hundreds of cities, towns and villages across the nation in the intervening decades.