I guess I've also suffered from being told different things by different people over the years, but I'm pleased to say what has been my current view turns out to be correct, in that I should go around the paint. So here's my conundrum...
Using the wonders of Google Maps again, here's another mini-roundabout:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=arbury+road,+cambridge&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=14.462703,39.594727&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Arbury+Rd,+Cambridge+CB4,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.228166,0.123762&spn=0.000228,0.000604&t=k&z=21The road from bottom right to top left in this map is aggressively traffic calmed, since it is a classic rat-run route and it's the main road here, really. This must once have been a T-junction, with the road from the bottom left being the minor road. Most drivers on the main road straight-line this junction at speed, not always within the 30 limit, and particularly so at night. The location is such that there are many boy-racer types in cars with the necessary under-floor neons, big exhaust pipes, wings, spoilers, LEDs, and so on.
The final challenge is that the exit from the minor road, particularly when turning right, is very blind. The paint blob is offset to the left of centre of the main road, clearly to slow the traffic down as it goes round it along the main drag. If you straight-line it and cross the paint, there's no need to slow, and so people don't. However, this offset also means that the hedge on the bottom corner in the picture means you have extremely restricted visibility from the side road to the right, and a fast approaching car is usually invisible until you are so far into the road that he (it's usually he) will broadside you. One might hope that at night, the view of your headlights on the hedge opposite might give your existence away, but that's rather hopeful.
Despite all the planning that one might expect of a Rospa Gold driver (because I'm proud to be one), I once got a massive shock as a boy-racer nearly wiped me out properly as I tried to turn right from the minor road from the bottom left. He skidded to a sudden halt some tens of meters up the road past the roundabout (going bottom right to top left), and I then had the second worry that he might come after me in a fit of road rage, but he didn't. Phew. I appreciate it would have been his fault, but I would have been dead with the impact square on my drivers door, had I not stopped abruptly as I saw the speed of approach of his advancing headlights. Not much consolation. Advanced Driving is (largely) about avoiding getting into collisions caused by other people, but I am still to find a way to enhance my own safety on this junction.
If the rules were followed by most drivers, this would be a sensible road-calming measure. As it is, I see it as a real hazard. I'd rather have traffic-calming measures that actually go along with people's habits and practices than relying on them following the theory. As is often said, "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice..."
In the bigger picture, it's probably easier to go with the flow and alter the junctions you build than trying to educate the ignorant masses because you can't. Once traffic is safe "enough", most people don't care about making it that bit safer. I know that readers here do care, but we know we are the minority. If you want to make a road genuinely safer, you have to make it easier for drivers to do the safer thing than an unsafe thing. This is a good example where the converse is the case, so the danger is raised rather than reduced. Shame, and demoralising, but there you go.