It gets worse…in DC, they put traffic lights in the roundabouts, utterly defeating their purpose. :smack:
Here’s the traffic circle (technically an oval) in Towson, Maryland.
It’s at an intersection of six streets coming together, and the roundabout has greatly improved traffic flow.
Granted, it took a while for people to learn how to drive through it, but I love it. It’s a huge improvement over the insanity of lights and stop signs that used to be there.
Perhaps it’s the two glasses of wine I’ve had tonight, but that first picture just made me laugh my ass off for about five minutes straight.
I, too, am slightly wined, and it made me giggle. The more I look at it, though, the more I’m convinced that it’s a work of absolute genius.
We have a very large roundabout near my house which carries over 50,000 vehicles a day - I avoid it like the plague. Every single time I drive through there are near misses because the moronic drivers in this city can’t work out the simple rules.
I was almost knocked off a motorbike myself there years ago because someone changed lanes when they shouldn’t have and clipped the bike. Also, just forget it if you are a pedestrian or cyclist, it’s suicide.
I hate the darn things.
Do you have your turn signal on when you’re getting ready to exit the roundabout? Especially if you’re in the inner lane and intending to exit, a right-turn signal is in order for the people trying to get on to know that you need the space.
And a tip for drivers in Austin. Traffic circles (Texan for roundabout) are taken counter clockwise :smack:
The way I was taught in England is that you should only ever use the left-turn signal (reverse these directions for the US) when there are no more exits between you and the exit you want.
Theoretically - though many of them differ from this model - an bearing in mind that you give right-of-way to those already on the roundabout, you should enter the roundabout in a lane that will result a spiral outwards (moving one lane out every time you pass an exit) that results in you ‘unwinding’ to end up in the outer lane just before you need to exit. Difficult to describe verbally, but actually relatively easy with practice, and most of the newer large roundabouts have very clear
So if you want to take the first exit from the roundabout, as you approach you should be in the left lane with the left turn signal on when you arrive at the roundabout. If you need the second exit and it’s before 12-o’clock, you don’t have an indicator, and should be in the left or middle lane. When you pass the penultimate exit, you should move out into the outside lane and be indicating to exit. If you want an exit beyond 12-o’clock you should be in the right-hand lane and use the right signal, turning it off when you pass the first exit and move one lane outwards, then turning it to left just before the exit you want, by which time you should be in the outer lane.
My driving test took me over the Magic Roundabout and now I have to drive through it twice a day. The advice I was given by my driving instructor is to just treat each of the mini roundabouts as you get to them and not get overwhelmed by the Big Picture. It works fine.
Incidentally, the name is now Official although it was originally a joke name coined by the locals, after the kids TV show of the same name.
I vastly prefer four-way stops to rotaries. Of course what I think of for rotaries, or roundabouts are the hell-circles that are on Rt. 2 in Eastern Mass. I’ll admit that I don’t think I’ve ever seen an actual accident in either the circle in front of MDC Concord, nor at Fresh Pond Circle. However, I know that accidents happen there regularly.
Of course, those are highway roundabouts, not the smaller ones that the OP seems to be talking about.
And before the rules of the road for the US were unified back in the 80’s Massachusetts had had the actual rule that cars entering the rotary had the right of way. And a large fraction of the population never seemed to get the notification that that had changed.
I do not like rotaries, Sam I am.
Absolutely. Using it any earlier is incorrect and dangerous.
…lane markings? They’re essential to lead traffic in a spiral, if there’s more than two lanes. A good example of this (even though it’s a badly-designed junction where a roundabout would never have adequate capacity, and uses traffic lights): M60/M62/M66 junction.
Sorry, I wrote that last post pre-coffee this morning.
The new Headington Hamburger in Oxford is a good example of a well done (pun intended) roundabout: pretty much the best designed roundabout I’ve seen. It’s light-controlled, and the high-volume traffic from London to the ring road is directed through the middle of the roundabout. When you get onto it, it’s totally obvious which lane you’re meant to be in at any given time. I’ve also noticed a reduction in congestion there, and I suspect there will be a reduction in accidents - it was notorious before.
How very sad I am, however, to be so excited by it.
That’s an impressively-original arrangement!
One thing to add about urban roundabouts with lights: sometimes their purpose isn’t obvious, as it’s actually a bus priority system. One bus route in Ipswich was a prototype for this, with GPS used to give buses a clear run through their particular route as they approach. (The same system as provides the information for real-time bus information on displays at stops.)
Jersey has had circles continuously from a long time ago to present. Most drivers know how to handle them; even New Yorkers seem to figure them out. Only drivers from Pennsy seem to be utterly baffled by these simple road devices. 
However, circles can get overloaded with traffic and then need to engineered out. There was a large circle in Eatontown that had the highest accident rate in NJ apparently. It was replaced by a series of jug handles and traffic lights, is much safer. It now flows better.
NJ has such a high level of traffic that many old circles have been removed, but recently, some intersections have replaced traffic lights with small circles that also act to reduce speed through an area.
Circles appear to be a good solution for low to medium traffic areas where if the drivers are not clueless they do work better than 4 way stops.
Jim
Never was a username more clearly begging out to post in a given thread.
In Europe people actually follow the rules at the roundabouts/circuses*. They stop at the line before entering, give the people in it the Right of Way, and allow people to blend in and out.
In the US, they’re a disaster. New Jersey has been getting rid of them for years (where do you livbe, What Exit? all the Traffic Circles I knew while growing up have long ago been rebuilt as more ordinary, traffic-light-equipped intersections) Massachusetts is arguably the worst. Nobody obeys the traffic rules in the first place, anyway, and combining that with the potential anarchy of a “rotary” is just asking for trouble. I think most people cling to the “rule” that “The person on the right always has the righ of way”, therefore rationalizing that the person entering the rotarty has the advantage. Only any riders already in the rotary is convinced that they have the right of way by first possession. And nobody in Massachusetts ever wants to yield in any case. Add to that the fact that rotaries here come in all sizes (from one car across to huge) and that many don’t even have a circular shape (like the one in my downtown), and you have accidents waiting to happen. Pepper Mill lost a car in one here, before I met her. One that used to be in my current tow used to have outrageous numbers of accidents, until they removed it. That’s pretty rare, in Massachusetts.
I didn’t even know California still had them. I’ve never seen one there, or anywhere else in the US besides NJ, MA, and Washington D.C. (where they’re integral to the City plan, and have been tamed with lots of streetlights)
- I’ve never heard (or read of) an American using the therm “roundabout”. Is the OPer a European transplant?
Cal, thank you for speaking up! I beginning to think I was the only person who viewed those things with horror.
CalMeachan, this article might prove interesting, making clear some of the features of modern smaller roudabouts.
GorillaMan, I just tried your link, and got told that not only did I not have permission to view that page, but that my IP was logged.
Here’s another fantastic roundabout layout. It’s a little small, but note how people entering the roundabout in any given right-hand or centre lane are gently spiralled outwards, while those in the left-hand lane just whizz round into the road they want to be on, presumably not having to deal with the drivers already on the roundabout.
Seems like the Oklahoma Department of Transportation does too.
ETA: and Montana.