Roundabouts do not need more space.
You can draw a circle on the road and have “roundabout rules” without the need for any car to even turn their wheels.
You can draw a circle on the road and have “roundabout rules” without the need for any car to even turn their wheels.
You could keep the same space I guess by pinching the roads tighter near the entries/exits but I don't think anyone is talking about that.
Drivers treat them as a normal roundabout by giving way to traffic on the right.
I mostly like them though.
If it's physically possible to "skip the roundabout", if it's just a drawing rather than hard barriers, people here (Spain) will just skip it straight up, unless there is a ton of traffic. I think lots of these driving rules and infrastructure has to take local culture into account, as it differs from "We follow laws like our collective lives depend on it" to "We see laws more like suggestions" depending on the country.
For example, the one at [0] regularly sees bendy buses[1] traverse it without any issues. The trick is that there's an outer ring of asphalt and an inner layer of paving stones: cars the asphalt as it is far more comfortable to drive, but longer vehicles like buses and trucks can let their rear wheels ride over the raised paved area as well.
And yes, it works the same when they are completely round instead of oval - this just happened to be the first clear example I came across.
[0]: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0660752,5.1198197,3a,75y,21....
[1]: https://busposities.nl/voertuig/cxx_SolarisUrbino18E_9686