Speeding up traffic is not always the intention of those who install traffic circles, often quite the contrary.
I drove by the aftermath of this once. A truck-crane came around a corner on the freeway and was met with a vehicle backing up, trying to get back to the exit it missed (York St. exit, westbound QEW in Hamilton). The truck crane swerved, and the driver lost control, flipping over and pinning another car underneath, which promptly burst into flames, killing the car driver, his wife and their unborn child. The elderly couple who were backing up proceeded up the exit they’d missed, and off in the distance.
Just recently I saw something less fatal but no less stupid. I noticed the car in front of me was lane drifting, and when I pulled up alongside to pass, he was busily scratching away at a lottery ticket.
Could have been worse, my idjit was texting!
Almost enough to make me say there is a ghod of some sort and justice in the universe.
Similar one down here, south of the border: an eeedyot (idiota) texting whilst driving a bike. Of course he didn’t have his helmet on…
And today, in the same driveway. Someone driving norhtboundnin a nondescript sedan turned quickly into the driveway (the wrong way, right next to the “Exit ONLY” sign) and baked out quickly as if to execute a three point or K turn (except I don’t know if it’s still called that if there’s a driveway involved) to head southbound. Sadly, she did not brake to look or anything, just flung her trunk right into traffic. Someone driving southbound swerved to avoid hitting her connected with a northbound car. Headlight to headlight basically. No injuries, I’m happy to say.
It’s bad that my first thought was “ooh, I know just the thread!”
I was behind one with a cup holder in the fairing last week and the idiot began drinking coffee while doing 45+ in an area with a fair amount of traffic and many residential streets and businesses feeding onto the highway.
Last Saturday alone there was a car driving the wrong way in the parking lot at Leroy Merlin (not “in” the lot proper, but in the short stretch of road that leads out from it), then three more in the village where I live.
Some days I wish I was a traffic cop…
Bad person you 
My policy, after years of driving and seeing bad drivers is this. If your bad driving is going to cause me be in an accident I am going to do my best to make sure it involve me and YOU and not me and somebody else. And I’m also not going to get into an accident just to save you from your own. You can’t fracking merge into traffic on the interstate? Hmmm, that upcoming bridge abuttment looks pretty hard..you might want to actually really hit the gas or the brakes mister.
Not once but twice I have seen people driving the wrong direction on the freeway (e.g., driving northbound in the southbound lanes), at highway speeds: once in Connecticut when my mother was driving, once in New Hampshire when I was driving. Freaked the shit out of me the second time. I was sure it would end tragically, but I checked the news diligently afterward and didn’t see any mention of an accident. Both times were before I had a cell phone. In retrospect, I should have taken the next exit and called the police from a pay phone, but I didn’t think to.
About three weeks ago I was heading south on US 41. As I approached a local intersection with a green stop light I noticed that there was a SUV in the opposing left turn lane waiting to turn. But coming up behind him was a subcompact moving at 45-50 MPH. It was only three or four car lengths behind the SUV and I clenched up expecting to see a powerful hit. But at the last instant, the subcompact turned HARD into MY lane! The lady ahead of me had good reflexes and luck and managed to swerve out of the way to the right. I was already braking from when I saw the imminent impact with the SUV and so I got to see the front of the subcompact for half an instant before it cut back hard into the central turn lane.
Tha absolute craziest part was that the subcompact could have cut in the other direction just fine. There were no other cars nearby going north. But insted she cut directly into the path of two oncoming cars. I say she because my impression from the brief glimpse was a teenage female.
I live in rural Thailand, where “to drive strangely” means to do something peculiar like looking in the rear-view mirror. It’s not unusual for a driver to use the passing lane, and force on-coming traffic off the road.
Rural drivers, many of whom are drunk but, even when sober drive slowly and down the middle of the road (straddling the dividing lane) because “that’s the safest place,” are completely different from Bangkok drivers, most of whom honed their skills via Grand Theft Auto and seem to assume they’ll be reincarnated after any crash. Previously I posted about an incident involving two Bangkok drivers from the 1990’s that I’ll never forget:
I, uh, love traffic circles. I hear people bitching about them all the time but they really seem to smooth things out here, and I’d rather drive around a traffic circle any day than stop at a light.
I was driving a car full of my college buddies to Florida for Spring Break (from Chicago) and we were passing through Louisville in the middle of the night, so everyone is quiet and kind of tired. Hardly any other cars on the interstate. I’m watching a police car with lights flashing speeding toward us on the other side of the highway divider, wondering where he’s going so fast.
A buddy from the back seat says rather calmly “Hey, pull over into the next lane. NOW!” So I do, and a car goes racing past us going the opposite direction in the lane I was just in. That could have been a very short spring break for all of us.
Had two incidents recently, just for this thread. 
- Driving city streets. There is this funky intersection. It involved two roads crossing, and a third diverting off the second road within 50 feet. It is the combination of several factors, including a road with a bend getting an extension bypass at the bend, then another road intersecting, then another offshoot lined up with that road. Looks something like a K with another tail on the left.
Here’s an attempt at a fig:
1 is my left turn lane into a straight.
2 is the inner left turn lane that forks, straight or right.
3 is the proceed through intersection lane.
4 is the right turn lane from oncoming direction, feeds into upper right road.
Opposing traffic lanes omitted.
|1|2| /2/4/
|1|2| /2/4/
|1|2|/2/4/
|1|2/2/4/
|1|2 |4|
|1|2 |4|
____|1|2 |4 -------
111111/2/ \44444444
------2/ \----------
222222/
-------------------------------
3333333333333333333333333333333
-------------------------------
I am approaching from the missing tail, need to make a left turn. There are two left turn lanes, feeding two lanes on the upright of the K. The innermost lane (2) feeds the option to turn right on the upper K fork. There is a double line of cars in the left turn lanes (1,2), plus more lanes going straight (3), and another turning right. Because of traffic load, this intersection tends to back up.
As I am approaching the light with green, I am in the leftmost lane (1) prepared to make my left and proceed straight. This SmartCar comes barreling up the third lane over (i.e. straight lane, 3), squeezes between two cars in the rightmost left turn lane (2) , pulls into my lane (1), executes the left turn, then swerves back into the righter lane (2) to execute a right turn onto that fork of the road (and I think ends up in lane 4).
That’s right, damned SmartCar playing motorcycle games. Hey dumbass, you do realize that dually pickup truck you swerved in front of would probably roll right over you like a speedbump, right?
- I’m sitting at a light wishing to make a right turn, just behind a small pickup. The light cycles green for mine and opposing left turn lanes first, then moves to green for straight traffic and yield arrows for left turners. The pickup in front of me begins to drive through the intersection. An oncoming pickup truck comes from the opposite direction, enters the intersection, and proceeds to make a left turn in front of the pickup that is driving through the intersection. I see this happening and slow, not wanting to be hit in the impending collision. The pickup in front of me doesn’t even slow down - no tap on the brake lights. Somehow both idiots make it through the intersection without a collision. I then proceeded to make my right turn and drive carefully to avoid said idiot pickup that is in front of me.
Well, whenever I do something stupid on the road, I am the first one to give myself a proper chewing out. “IDIOT! What were you thinking, you moron? Do you want to die? Wake up, watch what you’re doing! THINK!”
Hey, I’ve had that dream. Certainly somehow climbing out of the driver’s seat, trying to drive from the back. Also, I’ve had dreams where I’m trying to brake the car but the brakes just do not work, and I run into and over things willy nilly.
I was working in France for a couple weeks last year, up north near Belgium. I got to drive a sporty little Peugeot turbo Diesel, There were 14 roundabouts each way on my daily commute, not a single traffic light and only one stop sign. That was good fun.
Traffic circles are great if the people on the road have a clue about how to use them. This means that, in many parts of the United States, they are a menace. Some of the clusterfucks i’ve witnessed in American traffic circles have to be seen to be believed.