THE Magic Roundabout has puzzled visitors to Swindon for the last 30 years and now it is causing bewilderment as far away as Australia.

An e-mail is doing the rounds Down Under claiming the town's famous landmark solves congestion by scaring people into taking alternative routes.

Drew Tanner, from Brisbane, works at Main Roads - Queensland's answer to Swindon's roads department.

He said he thought the pictures looked so bizarre they must have been doctored, and surfed the Net for confirmation.

After finding the Evening Advertiser's website, he sent through an e-mail.

Mr Tanner, 36, said: "It looks so crazy. I thought someone must have been having a joke and superimposed roundabouts on to the image.

"It's as though the person who drew the road markings had been out on the beer the night before and fallen asleep at the wheel. There are white lines everywhere.

"Even though I work in the Government's transport department, I've never seen planning applications for anything like this.

"I'm sure we'd have to fix extra bumpers on the cars. It looks so dangerous."

He added: "I received the e-mail from a friend in Byron Bay, on Australia's East coast, and before that it had come from Sydney and Perth.

"Swindon's Magic Roundabout will be known all over the world before too long."

Ioan Rees, Swindon Borough Council's head of transportation services, said: "It's good that people on other continents are getting to know about Swindon.

"We get regular requests from contingents from foreign countries wanting to look around the town and the Magic Roundabout is always of interest."

PC John Armstrong, of Swindon Police traffic department, said: "The Magic Roundabout is one of the town's big claims to fame and it's great it has reached the other side of the world.

"Hopefully we'll see one near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the not too distant future."

The Magic Roundabout, formerly known as County Islands, was formed in September 1972 when a large conventional roundabout was replaced by a circle arrangement of mini roundabouts.

Statistics show that multiple roundabouts are the safer option.

Thirty-four people were injured in the three years before the Magic Roundabout was built, when some 286,000 vehicles used it in an average week.

This compares with 24 injuries in the three years leading up to 2002. Today around 100,000 vehicles use the roundabout each day.