I’ve been driving through roundabouts (or rotaries, as the locals call them) since I moved to Boston 20 years ago. The situation I’ve described in this thread is not imaginary. It actually happened; closest I’ve come to an accident in decades.
Some folks in this thread seem to be saying “roundabouts work perfectly”. I’m saying “no, they don’t, they work better than what they replace, but there are still things to be aware of”.
Rotaries in Massachusetts are not the same as roundabouts.. They don’t work the same.
Let me correct this for you. “They don’t work”.
They may work fine for small, low usage roads, but on major roads, they are a Fox 4 Cluster Frack of biblical proportions. There was a excellent reason the Sagamore rotary was nuked from orbit at the start of Cape Cod–twenty mile backups in three directions. (The only reason the backup did not get a 4th direction was the ocean was only a mile away.)
The next to die (in fire) will be the Rt 28/18/44 portal to hell in Middleboro. 5 chances to die in one orbit. Wheee!
I’ll def. take your word for it. as far as roundabouts go, this one replaced a signaled (major) intersection and has been a godsend. Previously it was chaotic, backed up beyond belief, and the site of plenty of serious collisions.
Rotaries use the same principle as the things we have a lot of here on freeways which are called “collector-distributors”, where the freeway on-ramp runs into the freeway off-ramp and traffic entering the freeway has to merge across traffic exiting the freeway. They seem kind of nerve-wracking sometimes, but once you realize that another driver has no right to hit you and every responsibility to avoid you, everyone just learns to take care of each other. If there is terror on the roads in MA, they need to start confiscating licenses and cars until they reach a low enough asshole density to make the roads not a nightmare.
No true roundabout?
That’s a MAJOR exaggeration, and the few places they have popped up they’re annoying as fuck. Right up there with red arrows in “things they never had 20+ years ago”, “never taught in driver’s ed”, then just threw out there with no explanation so no one quite knows what the proper use is so causes more problems that it “solves”.:mad:
In ‘an’ American roundabout? Um, which one, may I ask? Because I’ve never encountered one like this in DC or Maryland.
The only ones I have experience with are exactly like this.
When our local roundabouts were first built, the Transportation Dept. had a citizen meeting. The traffic engineer said exactly this (we’re talking two-lane roads with special lanes for turning at intersections): When you approach a 4-way intersection with a stop sign or light, you get into the appropriate lane first; i.e., if you want to turn right, you get into the right lane; to go left, enter the left-most lane before the actual intersection.
You do exactly the same thing in roundabouts. If you enter the correct lane, you will be able to correctly and safely exit where desired.
It works. The only time you are crossing lanes is where it is optionally designated with dotted lines, and the only time the line is dotted is when there can be no other traffic to contend with* in that lane*.
It’s entirely possible other roundabouts are designed differently.
as has been pointed out more than once, the traffic circles in DC, MD, and other parts of New England are not designed the same as roundabouts, nor do they work the same.
A couple of years ago I ran into a roundabout on a rural county highway, several miles from any town. Since the vast majority of the local traffic would be farmers, hobby farm owners or farm vehicles, I was sincerely confused as to why they would throw this thing in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
To elaborate on my own post, here’s the data supplied by a local newspaper. The Peninsula Pulse article** has an excellent pic of one of the roundabouts along with an animation. (scroll down) If you are still confused, take a good look at this link and admire the graphic.** The animation is an actual time-lapse of actual traffic, taken from a drone – pretty neat, hunh?
According to DOT (Dept of Transportation), from 2004 to 2008 there were 29+9 crashes at the two intersections, resulting in 7+6 injuries, no fatalities.
That sums to 38 crashes, 13 injuries, in 4 years, or an average of 9 crashes, 3 injuries per year.
(I think the reason the data was from 2004-8 is because the DOT used that time frame to decide how to build the intersections in the highway while they were re-surfacing.)
In the last year, since the roundabouts were opened, there have been 17 crashes, no injuries. Two main causes: drivers failing to properly yield, and rear-end collisions when cars braked too abruptly before entering a roundabout.
To sum up and compare, a yearly average of 9 crashes pre-roundabouts, and 17 crashes post-roundabouts. Annual injuries, pre: 3; post: none. So twice as many crashes now, but a major reduction in injuries.
People object to things for some of the absolute stupidest reasons.
And that’s a particularly stupid reason, because small roundabouts in residential areas can be really pretty because of all the trees, greenery and flowers that can be planted, and plus it breaks up the dull grid monotony. It’d rather see an intersection that looked more like a small botanical garden than the mass of asphalt that Mr. Hoyer seems to favor with such nostalgia for old tyme aesthetics.
With the modern RAs people are describing here there’s no changing lanes allowed within the RA (except for a few exceptions) and there’s no reason to “slow down” to “exit” the RA because you are essentially driving straight at that point. Other than someone screwing up, there is never a case where someone in the inside lane needs to leave the RA and is cut off by someone in the outside lane who wants to continue around. Check out this diagram: Roundabouts | WSDOT
Has anyone else seen one of these? I hear the locals call it “The Peanut”.
Roundabouts will work very well once most cars are autonomously driven.
Where I live, drivers do occasionally screw up. Must be a New England thing, too.
I’d assign it a probability of 1.
Around here, we’ve got 1-lane roundabouts, which are easy and work as intended. But multi-lane roundabouts around here are rarely accompanied with advance signs to give you any clue what lane you should be in.
And in addition to roads, they’re frequently in places like shopping mall parking lots, where you have about 5 seconds to realize that you’re about to enter a complicated roundabout, when you’re still asking yourself, “which end of the mall is Macy’s at?” so you’re dealing with an unfamiliar roundabout at the same time as trying to sort out where the hell you’re going anyway. Double layers of confusion.
I’m just dropping by to mention that I love nothing more than a deserted traffic circle (the proper term for a roundabout) in the middle of the night. Free, public, skidpad! With the right pavement and my summer tires installed and I swear I can get my inside rear tire off the ground briefly.