Roundabouts, sometimes called traffic circles, are safer, more efficient, and environmentally-friendly than intersections with stop signs or stoplights. They are everywhere in the UK, so much that there's a club for them. In this video we get to hear from their delightful leader, who goes by the title the Lord of the Rings. But the US has been slow in adopting roundabouts for several reasons. Many drivers don't understand them at all, like the people who suddenly had to deal with one in Kentucky a couple of years ago. This video will not help you in that area, as they switch back and forth from British and American roundabouts, with people driving the "wrong" way in one or the other.
But the US is slowly installing more and more of them. I hope road designers will learn from their mistakes. There is an interstate exit in my area that has low visibility and fast traffic on the cross highway. The reason for the low visibility is that the ramps had to be carved into rocky hills, and there wasn't enough carved away. So they installed roundabouts, but still didn't carve more of the rock away. Therefore, even though the signage is good and people know how to use a roundabout, the circles are way too small, visibility is still low, and those intersections are now effectively four-way stops. There are some kinks to be worked out before US traffic flows through roundabouts from sea to shining sea. (via Laughing Squid)
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
About Roundabouts
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3 comments:
One lane traffic circles are useful. Most people easily figure out how to move through them. But two-lane or multi-lane traffic circles can be a nightmare when people do not know the special rules of the road for driving through them -- which lane to use, how far one may go in each lane, never change lanes inside a traffic circle, etc. And many people do NOT know the rules. Our two-lane traffic circles here in Edmonton consistently have the highest annual number of traffic accidents. Some of the worst ones got converted into controlled intersections with traffic lights, they were so bad. Any new ones being built here in the City are one lane only.
I know what you mean, on Cape Cod in MA there's a circle joining one of the two bridges to the Cape with the main artery and three smaller but still heavily traveled roads. The damn circle is 4 or 5 lanes wide but the lanes aren't marked. It's a free for all, a 4 ring circus, where one aggressive driver can raise havoc.
" never change lanes inside a traffic circle"
So if you somehow end up on an inside lane of a traffic circle, you are stuck forever, just like in National Lampoon's European Vacation movie. ;)
I lived in a town with narrow streets with lots of stop signs. They decided to put traffic circles on every intersection. The fire department protested "We'll never be able to respond to fires in time trying to get our large trucks around these narrow circles!" So they did a series of timed runs with their trucks--and they got to their destinations within their predefined time limits every time, and then backed off on the protests. After a couple of months of people figuring out how they work (the worse problem was going the wrong way around the circle) people finally got the hang of them and ended up liking them.
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