A rental vehicle has completed its fourth consecutive lap of a roundabout, maintaining a steady speed while its driver waits for a decision to arrive.

“I know it’s the third exit,” said driver Ansel Pratt, 47. “I do not know which one is the third.”

Pratt entered the roundabout at 2:14 p.m. As of 2:17 he had passed the correct exit twice, both times while checking a sign that confirms the exit exists but not where.

The Institute for Directional Stubbornness — which recently published on long-distance driving — classifies the manoeuvre as circling to think.

“Stopping is not permitted, and choosing is not possible,” said Dr. Marguerite Ansel. “The circle is the only surface on which the driver can continue to exist while unresolved.”

Institute research finds a passenger will remain silent for exactly two laps before offering assistance, at which point the assistance is experienced as an attack.

Pratt’s passenger offered assistance on lap three.

On lap five, Pratt took an exit at random and announced it was the scenic route. It was an industrial estate. He drove through it with great confidence and rejoined the roundabout eleven minutes later, from a different direction, as a changed man.