Is that what they call them in NJ; “circles”? We call them “rotaries” in Massachusetts. I’ve lived in CA for over 30 years now, and I still slip up most of the time and my friends think I’m talking about a Men’s Club if I mention one.
they basically eliminate the chance for the so-called “T-Bone” accident where one car plows right into the driver’s seat of the other, which would be the case if a red light was misread.
Yes, they were called “circles” in NJ (though I haven’t lived there for over 30 years). The “Airport Circle” is the one I was referring to in my last post.
For the first 30 years of my life I only encountered one in Delaware. At least roundabouts seem a little complicated, considering they are fairly rare and not taught to most drivers. I have enough problems with people who can’t handle 4way stops, right on red (or yielding left on green, not entering an exit only or 1 way street, and not blocking intersections. I encounter an issue with at least one daily.
What is this turning? You can enter, exit, or change lanes left or right. Anyone understand what the OP is talking about?
So the people that don’t understand them…do you call them circle jerks?
That is not the case in my city ! There is a ‘Yield’ sign right next the roundabout in my city . Drivers have to yield to drivers using the roundabout but a lot drivers don’t do this ,they just try to cut the other person off instead of waiting a few seconds ! I had this happen to me too many times . There are drivers here that don’t misread Red Lights they just refuse to stop for them ! Drivers are very rude in New England !
That’s a question for Shagnasty 
That happened to me earlier this week (Ohio). People also have a tendency to stop before entering the circle, even when there are no other cars (and there is a yield sign).
In some areas, the circles are just poorly designed*. There are two near here that have huge dirt mounds in the center, and it is difficult to see if there are cars already on the circle. Another that I know of gives right of way to people ENTERING the circle.
*Yes, someone poorly designed a circle.
According to the traffic engineers who designed our local 2016-built roundabouts, the huge dirt mounds that block vision lines are intentional. TEs think that blocking vision is a safety feature if you can’t see what’s coming at you 6 seconds away; you only need to know it if it’s 3 seconds away. 
:dubious:
I think that pretty much sums up the roundabout concept. The driver must make rapid decisions about merging, slowing down, or stopping. There’s not a lot of leeway in time for mistakes, but the speeds aren’t high, either. The only saving grace is that the more-frequent accidents are minor; not a lot of fatal T-bones.
Count me in as a driver who was’t trained on these either in DE.
I sat in on a very convincing presentation by a NJDOT person showing how roundabouts save lives as compared to intersections. Even if there are accidents, they have a much less chance of being fatal in a RA since everyone is driving at a low speed.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Why are you surprised by this? All the rotaries in NH are called “traffic circles” officially: Lee traffic circle, Epsom traffic circle etc. Didn’t you come up here when you were in MA?
Anyway…the only thing I’ll say about idiots and traffic circles is that if someone puts on their turn signal, it’s time to be wary of what they’re going to do next. People who know how traffic circles work never signal their exit (unless they’re turning right immediately after entering, which hardly counts as being in it anyway). Or, at least here, anyway. I hear there are places that have the people in the circle yield to those entering, so who knows what else those drivers do.
What’s the problem with Mormons and roundabouts?
I’m confused by the terminology here.
How exactly do you “turn left” from an inner lane? In fact, how do you do anything from the inner lane? At some point you have to get back to the outer line to get out of the rotary/circle and back onto the road.
In St. Louis, the largest and most notable roundabout is Halls Ferry Circle. Three boulevards and three regular streets intersect there. The circle itself is four lanes across, which is easily wide enough to handle the volume of traffic.
BUT the traffic circle itself is less than 350 feet across. The streets converge as little as 60 feet apart (and no more than 160 feet), plus there are two parking lot entrances.
No one in their right mind deliberately goes into the three inside lanes, because there’s no way to get back to the outside lane. And who, once they’re in the circle, is supposed to have the right of way – the people in the inside lane trying to get to the outside, or the people on the outside just trying to get to the next turn?
Granted, when you have six streets converging, a roundabout is the only way to handle it. But I can’t understand why anyone would think people who have trouble navigating that setup are “morons.”
In that example, though, it really only looks like three streets to me. I mean, they have different names on either side of the roundabout in most cases, but they’re straight lines across. Here, in Chicago, you’d just have three sets of traffic lights instead of two. It does suck, though, and I’d prefer we’d use more roundabouts.
I was counting one in and one out as two streets. Your nomenclature may vary.
(Is it ever appropriate to put a winky smiley in the Pit?0
Consider a regular four-way intersection (like a + sign). You can turn right, go straight, or turn left. Now replace the intersection with a roundabout with four roads feeding it. You essentially have the same options; from where you enter the roundabout, take the first exit for a right turn, the second to go straight, etc. At least, I think that’s what the OP was getting at.
Which, to me, is still a problem. You can still wind up with a car in the inner lane that wants to leave the roundabout, and a car in the outer lane that wants to stay in. Happened to me once; a car veered into my path, forced me to leave the rotary before I wanted, then pulled alongside me at the next light to yell at me.
And there’s a rotary near my house where I often have to make a U-turn.
A serious fallacy in this thread is all of you above posters who think you know how roundabouts, traffic circles, rotaries, or whatchamacallums work. When, in fact, there are all sort of different (and some really weird) designs for these, and different rules, and different terminology.
Here in CA, we have two kinds that I know of, called “roundabouts” and “traffic circles” (but I can never remember which is which). In one kind, there are stop signs at every entrance. In the other, there are not, but implied “Yield” at every entance. In all cases, vehicles already in the circle have the right of way and vehicles entering have to merge their way in.
There are all kinds of bizarro designs elsewhere. In several of the above posts, multi-lane circles are mentioned, with confusing rules about who, in which lanes, can go in which directions.
To pile upon that, there are “spiral” traffic circles. Cars in the outermost lane are shunted off at the next exit (or at one of the next two exits), whereupon the next-inner lane moves to the outside, to be shunted off at the next one or two exits, whereupon the next next-inner lane moves to the outside, to be shunted off after that. In other words, as you drive around the circle, the lanes spiral outward; as each lane reaches the outer track, it is next in line to be shunted off to an exit.
Here are some links I found discussing spiral roundabouts, with lots of pictures, none of them terribly clear (that’s why I’m including several links; see what you can make of them). All appear to be in England, so the traffic flows clockwise around them!
http://www.stevesdriving.co.uk/spiral_roundabouts.html
http://www.accord-driving-school.com/driving-lessons/roundabouts/spiral-roundabouts/
http://learntodrive.robosoul.co.uk/roundabouts/spiralroundabouts/
Then you have the infamous Swindon Magic Roundabout, which consists of one massive counter-rotating (in England, that’s counter-clockwise) circle surrounded by five smaller normal (clockwise) circles! :eek: OG help [del]us[/del] them!
Yeah, then we have at least two of those in Chicago, sans roundabout, but with regular traffic signals. The real “Six Corners” intersection at Milwaukee, Irving Park, and Cicero, and then another “six corners” at Damen, Milwaukee, and North. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is another six corner intersection somewhere, but most of them are just a little bit off from intersecting exactly in one point. (Actually, thinking about it, there must be a bunch more. Halsted, Mlilwaukee, and Grand comes to mind.)
A few small ones have been built in the Montreal area in recent years, notably in the bedroom community of Nuns’ Island. I’m not aware of any accidents, and they are fairly well-marked, with signs showing the fines if you ignore the crosswalks.