What’s weird is that in the UK, many larger roundabouts are now systems of traffic lights - when they were built, they may have been entirely self-regulating (opportunities to join the flow are created by people traversing the roundabout and exiting just before where you are joining), but volume of traffic increased and they could become hopelessly mired and gridlocked in cases where traffic flow is dominant on one route in and out (most people going the same way) - the system filling up with a slow moving queue of vehicles, preventing some routes from entering the roundabout at all.
The solution, apparently, was to divide them up into circular arrangements of traffic light controlled junctions, so at least everybody notionally gets a turn at entering into the roundabout (although this is still often hampered by people queuing solidly through the lights and the queue failing to clear for entire cycles).
Around here they’re common enough that we don’t see much bizarro behavior. But for sure you can’t safely assume that every driver is playing by the same ules you are. In a state where “stop for red lights” is seen as optional, proper roundabout procedure seems like small beer.
I hate FB. A lot. I have no account there, and never will.
But when you see a FB login prompt blocking the screen, just click the X or hit Esc and it disappears. Then you can read the page underneath unless it’s been security-blocked to just certain users.
It’s meant to look like logging in or creating an account is mandatory. But it’s not. Just more Zuckerbergian skullduggery.
“Traffic calming” is certainly a thing, but not here in the burbs. When there’s not a lot of traffic, there’s not much that needs to be “calmed”. Really, it appears to just be decoration.
“Traffic calming” has nothing to do with the volume of cars or with increasing or decreasing that volume.
It’s entirely a euphemism for “slowing down rampant speeding.” Which speeding gets faster as the volume goes down, not up. The lightly used main road within a subdivision is exactly the place they throw circles into to slow the heedless 65 km/h drivers down to the 40 km/h speed limit.
Your logic makes sense, but it doesn’t apply here. For three reasons.
The roundabout I’m referring to that’s near me is so close to a moderately busy artery that a skilled baseball pitcher could throw a ball that distance. If the intent was traffic calming, why wouldn’t they locate it further on?
They’ve addressed the issue of traffic calming with 4-way stops at several points along the way of the residential thoroughfare toward the next major intersection.
The next major intersection is much busier than the one closest to my roundabout, and there’s no roundabout there.
My argument is not with you, @LSLGuy, it’s with the town council which is insane, and loves to charge incredibly high property taxes and then waste it on needless extravagance.
Traffic engineering is science. Road design is politics. Lotta ways that becomes a trainwreck.
I feel your pain. My city council is engaged in a to-the-death struggle to give our city to rabid developers for clear-cutting and densification. Knock down 25 houses and install 1200 apartments in a highrise on the same land. With zero increase in roads or schools or …
I am almost certain there was no mention of roundabouts in any form when I took Driver’s Ed, and completely certain that it was not a part of the behind-the-wheel driving test I had to take.
I see that the current Illinois Rules of the Road booklet has about half a page about “Rotary and Roundabout.” I wonder how long that has been a part of that document.
They can also be a problem when they’re implemented poorly. Some intersections in my mom’s neighborhood recently got them, and they’re too small: You have to really crank the steering to make it around them.
Well, in the rural area where I grew up, learned to drive and took my tests there weren’t any roundabouts. There weren’t traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and speed bumps either. Not to mention no hook turns, three lane merges, hill starts and parallel parking. But you learn to handle these things. They aren’t intractable impediments.
Yeah, the rehabilitation hospital Hubster is at has a couple of traffic circles near it. They aren’t difficult just turn right at the correct street. However, I went from a different location than I had before. My GPS kept saying “take the third exit out of the traffic circle”. I went around both of those circles three times before I recognized where I was and turned around and approached from the direction I was accustomed to. The GPS was giving me the wrong directions around the circles and kept sending me around and around several blocks. Even when I entered the lot and into the parking garage it kept burbling at me and telling me to turn somewhere that wasn’t possible. Not a problem with the traffic circle, but pretty frustrating.
When the US-93 bypass at Wickenburg, AZ was built a series of six roundabouts in five miles was included, leading to a large one at the south end where 93 and US-60 meet. Since the speed limit through the circles is 15 they might have been at least partially intended as a calming feature – the speed limit in between is 45.
95%+ stick to the straight through route of 93 so after three or four of them on entering a circle you have to stay alert to the rare auto that wants to cross.
There’s some truth in the surmise that a lot of resistance comes from old farts like me who don’t like being compelled to learn new driving skills. There was only one traffic circle within an hour’s drive of me, growing up.
But now there are five roundabouts I negotiate almost daily. And as I saw about 45 minutes ago, they lend themselves to jackassery way more than traffic lights do.
Sure, we’ve all seen people try to speed through a yellow and still be in the intersection when your light turns green. But it’s uncommon to see them out-and-out run the light and require you to hit the brakes.
With roundabouts it’s always a judgment call whether or not to yield to the person on the left or go on though because they’re not that close or going that fast. My judgment leans strongly toward “yield.” A lot of jackasses around here lean toward “gun it and the others will have to yield.”
Oh, sweet, summer child. There’s a signaled intersection I drive through regularly, the left turn leading to the on ramp for US-60. It is a regular occurrence for folks making that protected left turn to blithely pass through the intersection five or six seconds after the light has gone green for the direction straight through.
By “regular” I mean four times out of five when I’m waiting for the light. It’s likely the siren call of an only partially-clogged freeway that beckons them so. If the city of Mesa wanted to enhance its revenue all they’d have to do is station an ambush squad car. In an eight hour shift it’d issue as many tickets as the cop could physically write.
GoogleMaps shows 7 roundabouts along US 93 there. The northernmost one used to have a statue of a pair of giant spurs in its central island. Until a semi crashed into them in 2021. Now apparently they’ve been moved to a nearby gated community.
My personal opinion: roundabouts are awesome, and I do not find it particularly difficult to get used to them.
Even when driving in the UK (where traffic around roundabouts is mirror-reversed with respect to what I am used to) I did not have any particular difficulties navigating them (and there I had to go “against my instincts” and go through the roundabout clockwise instead of counterclockwise!).
I guess that the main problem is building them where people have never seen them before, and getting them up and running without proper driver ed campaigns.
In any case I appreciate roundabouts very much: they are definitely way more efficient than intersections with traffic lights, in my experience (although I have seen some roundabouts with traffic lights, which in my opinion totally defeats the purpose…………..)
I have no problems at all with the increasing number of roundabouts and agree that they can smooth out traffic considerably. Heck, the traditional traffic circle around a county courthouse in a small town is a well-established feature in many parts of the country.
But I continue to have problems with Diverging Diamond Interchanges, SPUIs, and whatever else traffic engineers are busy developing and pushing on the public. Yes, I understand that they DO work and that they DO achieve the intended goals. But they remain stressful to negotiate for many drivers, especially older drivers. If you look at a drawing of one, you understand how they work. But in the real world at ground level (with off-center overhead signage, raining, at night, headlights in your eyes, worn road markings) they can be quite confusing. They remain pretty rare around here, but I always feel that I should be getting a briefing (with projected slides) before I enter one. And even if I understand what I’m doing, does the OTHER driver understand what THEY’RE supposed to be doing?