Roundabouts, or rotaries, can be good... when they are done right.
A rotary near me was done wrong, and required a TON of money to study it, another TON to improve and fix it.
Hate’em
Each state’s DOT personnel get free trips to Europe to studying “roundabouts” so they can bring the information on how to build them back to their states and we all can pretend we’re dumbass Europeans. I guess we’ll be driving on the left once we get done with the roundabout stupidity.
Drivers are poorly educated with regard to roundabouts.
New Jersey has eliminated them because they are horrible when traffic volume increases.
We call them circles of death.
Two times in the last 6 months, I was close to having incidents when people just wanted to get on the roundabouts and go through to their desired exit in the roundabout, without paying attention to others that were entering or were already in the roundabout. To some, it’s just a circular strait-away. Stop signs would do a better job with traffic flow.
I like them with light to moderate traffic, definitely improves traffic flow in the right situations.
They’re putting one in at a very busy intersection near my house where there’s a redlight now. Gonna be hard getting through it in certain directions due to the heavy traffic flow during rush hour and when school lets out etc.
We have quite a few of them around here (Central NC), and they work well. They help sort out the tourists, too — they hesitate.
Roundabouts take up huge amounts of real estate.
You can accomplish the exact same result by just replacing the four “Stop” signs at an intersection with four “Yield” signs.
Yield to the drivers on your left, take the right-of-way over drivers to your right, just as with a roundabout and just as quickly.
But that would be far too simple and inexpensive.
Everything government does must be intrusive, expensive and of inferior quality.
It’s the law.
I don’t mind them, but Beau says they are a PITA to plow in the winter months.
When we got one in the town where I used to live (Pop. 3K) it was pretty confusing for the older folks. I had a lady coming straight at me, going the WRONG WAY in the roundabout. How she managed that, I’ll never know - I was busy powering OUT of the situation with my life, LOL!
Was stuck in one just this past week. There was an AMAZINGLY large load on a semi trailer and I’m not sure WHY the driver decided to take that rout into town (there are others) and he had one helluvatime negotiating his way around it while the rest of us waited for 15 minutes or so.
Maybe I DO mind them? Yeah. I guess I do!
I am seeing these increasingly installed on California’s roadways.
Problem is people don’t know how to use them - when and to whom to yield. What I see is they drive at speed straight into them without looking and exit without looking.
I hate the things and avoid them if possible.
Some idiot engineers have fond childhood memories of roundabouts.
They have too much faith in unobservant humans.
The more the powers that be want to emulate Europe (round-abouts, trains, mass transit), the worse things get here.
WE ARE NOT EUROPE, YA FRIGGIN MORONS!
Done right, roundabouts are great, much better than a four-way stop.
The British do it right: cars already in the roundabout have the right of way. Merge in when clear and go around to your exit. If you’re not sure of your exit, you can go around several times until you figure it out without causing anyone else a problem.
The French screw it up: cars entering the circle have the right of way, so in busy times the circle is guaranteed to be grid locked.
The American ones I’ve seen are double screwed up. No one knows who has the right of way plus they paint lines in the circles for the purpose of ... I don’t know the purpose, but it doesn’t work and just creates confusion.
Fire trucks and buses have issues with roundabouts.
I had a friend caught in a Paris round about during rush hour. He went round and round until he noticed he was low on fuel. Spotting a fuel station he managed to get into the fuel station and stopped at the pump. Next a bunch of guys ran out; fueled the car, washed the windshield and changed the tires! One worker leaned in the window and yelled “get back out there, your leading!”
Roundabouts are great, if here in the states we were educated on how to use them. People are unsure when driving. In England for instance some roundabouts have traffic lights because of the amount of traffic flow thru them. They work well if people know the rules. It’s rare to see accidents in Eupope unless a foreigner is confused.
It will be hard to re-educate those who are set in their ways. In Matthew’s NC, there was a shopping center that placed a roundabout, so many accidents they had to remove. You can’t just implement them without education.
My 2 cents
I was a traffic engineer in one of my past lives. Up to a certain volume of traffic, roundabouts are the most efficient way of moving traffic through an intersection. But there is a level of traffic volume where traffic signals become more efficient.
All one has to do is go try and drive into, and out of, one a Manila’s scary roundabouts in the Philippines. They will make you think twice.
Damn pain in the ass, but still better than toll roads.