Does it?
Or does it instead instill a fear that a fast moving car may appear from behind the obstruction at any moment? Resulting in paralysis by slow-thinking and slow-acting drivers?
For sure a large urban thoroughfare multi-lane roundabout / traffic circle that might be 200 or 300 yards in diameter might usefully have some blocking for the far side. For a circle more on a neighborhood scale ISTM that any sightline obstructions just increase anxiety instead of reducing info overload.
I would expect that most drivers will have intuitively learned that the tighter the curve, the slower traffic goes. So a smaller roundabout means slower traffic in it. I’m not saying all drivers have learned this, but most have.
Any roundabout that large is going to be a converted rotary, which are not all that common. In fact, they’re non-existent in most of the country. Even multilane roundabouts are rarely built more than 300 feet (not yards) across. Most multi-lane RAs are about 250 feet; most single laners are 200 feet or less.
I haven’t trusted anybody’s signal since trusting somebody’s signal got me into a nasty accident back around 1978. (Nobody significantly hurt, but the cars pretty well smashed.)
#@!$@
My incredibly annoying Americanized google maps application always says “take the second exit at the roundabount”, when it should just STFU. We’ve got roundabounts instead of give-way-to-the-right, or give-way, or stop, or traffic lights, and they don’t need any more notification than any other intersection. Unless you are turning left, in which case it should just say “turn left”, because (around here), knowing which way you go around a roundabout is no more difficult than knowing which side of the road you drive on.
When my grandfather was teaching me to drive, he strongly advised me AGAINST trusting other drivers’ signals until I saw what the vehicle in question was actually doing. Too many instances of people signaling the wrong direction, failing to turn off a signal after they made their maneuver, etc.
I’ve pretty much given up signaling lane changes and such. In my area, it’s safer to not tip off enemy “drivers” as to what they “need” to prevent me from doing, even if they have to risk colliding with me, running me off the road, etc.
For sure “trust” and any other driver behavior is a very tenuous thing. And yes, ensure they’re doing something concrete to put their intent into action beyond just signaling before beleeving that a) they mean to signal at all, and b) you’ve correctly sussed out their intent.
My personal favorite are people in a commercial district who turn on a signal approaching a set of about 3 driveways, an intersection, and three more driveways beyond. Then turn right into the last driveway on the far side of the intersection. Thereby headfaking 6 other drivers on their way to turning right at the 7th possibility.
How about waiting to signal until the very next place you can turn is the place you will turn? Not before and not after. Slow early if you must, but signal like you mean it.
Fellow humans are why none of us can have nice things.
Every car I’ve driven in the last 20 years has had hazard lights. It’s always seemed to me that if you would just put on your hazard lights everyone would know that you were about to slow down and do something unexpected.
A street I regularly make a right turn onto has two driveways in the 200 feet before it. Since people like to tailgate here following your rule would mean they would have to brake hard at my “unexpected signal.” I put the signal on when I’m just short of the first driveway so they won’t think I mean that one, and slow down a little bit, then slow in earnest as the second driveway passes.
Just slowing down with no signal makes them tailgate closer while looking cross.
When I’m signaling a turn, I’m mostly not trying to communicate with the driver behind me in my lane. That’s what my physical presence and brake lights are for.
Instead I’m communicating with the drivers ahead of me that may be trying to merge into my lane from a driveway or cross street. They’re the ones who can use the info that I’m about to vanish from their oncoming traffic stream. Slowing in a typical predictable fashion for my impending turn also helps communicate which exit (driveway or cross street) I’m aiming for. None of that is decision-making info for the person behind me.
They,d also have no idea what, and might well think you,d seen an obstacle in the road.
That’s not what your hazards are for, and in some states I think it’s illegal to use them that way.
While I never trust the turn signals entirely, I do consider them highly useful information from the car ahead of me. Somebody’s brake lights on their own, let alone a slowing car with no signal, tells me very little; I don’t know whether they’re going to continue slowing further, to slam the brakes on in my lane to avoid hitting something I haven’t seen or as a reaction to an argument within the car, or to speed up again. If they’re going to turn, I’ve got no idea which way. Brake lights/ slowing down in combination with a turn signal says something specific to the following car; the slowing car is probably going to do something predictable. A car slowing for no obvious reason might do anything next. I need to avoid either of them, yes; but their effect on my attention, and my preparation for evasive maneuvers, is going to be different.
Agreed. In every US state I’ve lived in, hazards on while in motion is illegal.
They are meant to have exactly one meaning: a completely stopped vehicle near enough to, or in, a traffic lane so drivers need to aggressively avoid the obstacle they’re rapidly approaching.
Now @Melbourne is in Australia so maybe things are different there.
I can’t speak for Australia, but in Germany there’s one situation you are obliged to turn them on while still moving: when you reach the end of a congestion on the Autobahn, to warn the drivers behind you and make them slow down.
Despite the law we often see a few drivers with theirs on during torrential rain when they, and almost everyone around them, is driving much slower than normal for that road.
I can certainly understand and approve of the logic. Like your Autobahn case, it’s about alerting folks behind you to possible unexpected high closure rates.
I suspect that’s typical driver behavior in some state or country where a lot of our local immigrants come from.
That’s not the law in Texas. Texas code is to use them to indicate unsafe conditions to other vehicles, particularly while approaching or passing.
E.g. that can include situations when your car is in motion, particularly things like flat tires or other mechanical issues while slowing to a stop.
It’s not recommended and can in many cases be cited if used during torrential rain but it’s not flatly illegal, either, especially if conditions are such that stopping safely may not be possible.
Though, I don’t imagine using them in a roundabout would count as an emergency, either.
When I’m driving up some steeper roads, in California, it’s not that unusual to see at least one or two trucks in motion with their flashers on. I interpret that as “hey, I’m doing my best here, but cannot maintain highway speed up this hill, so I’m going to be a lot slower than you probably want to be behind”.
I believe it’s legal in NY to indicate that you’re moving much slower than would be expected on the road. Certainly I’ve often used them that way, and never been cited. A car or truck coming up behind a buggy or slow moving farm equipment may conceal the slow moving vehicle’s own warning signs from following traffic, and had better produce its own warning sign.
For that matter, the buggies these days usually have hazard flashers mounted; and I’ve seen them on vehicles escorting unusual oversized slow traffic such as half a manufactured house being hauled down the road. And I’ve seen them used on a damaged vehicle limping along the road very slowly; and I have seen them used, and used them, in fog so heavy it was necessary to slow to a crawl.
But they’re not for ordinary slowing such as to make a turn. They’re hazard lights, they’ve supposed to be indicating a hazard.
[late 2000’s] I was waiting to pull out, saw a lady with her blinker on, she had clearly slowed down AND was already unambiguously turning into the lot, wheels definitely angled inwards car’s angle changing (my work lot note), snail’s pace. So I pull out, and note I always gun it in case I was wrong…
I was. She was right behind me. I dunno what she did exactly, but must have just quickly jerked the wheel back and kept going on the main route. But my engine saved the day.
About 20 years ago, they put in a small roundabout in place of a traffic light - and the traffic jam that backed up several blocks regularly there just vanished.
That’s the second reason they put in roundabouts, the first being to reduce serious accidents. It’s really unfortunate that the US was so slow to get on the roundabout bandwagon. We’d have roundabouts in lots more places, especially in larger cities. And our traffic fatality rate wouldn’t be quite so astronomical compared to other developed countries.
Nope, wrong. You’re communicating it to the driver behind you; you’re slowing to make a turn. As for the guy waiting to pull out; he shouldn’t trust that info until maybe he also see you slowing down because maybe you’ve had it on for the past three miles, since you last made a turn, or maybe you just accidentally engaged it; you could be in a rental & reached for how to clean the dead bug splatter in your car rather than this unfamiliar-to-you one you are currently driving, or maybe you’re turning into the driveway right after where I’m waiting to pull out.
In short, I don’t trust turn signals alone.