There is a serious issue that American drivers are accustomed to the car on the right having right of way at a 4-way stop, while at a (relatively uncommon) US roundabout the car on the left has right of way. You really do have to be very careful on US roundabouts because of this.
This is something that made me finally admit that an ex was profoundly stupid, when I explained to them that “right side has right of way” was an arbitrary convention, and that these were two different senses of right. They refused to accept that it was not a fundamental law of nature that being on the right side has rights attached to it.
I scared myself (and at least one other driver) half to death yesterday on our town’s newly installed mini-turbo roundabout–sounds similar to yours. The signs directing which lane to use are located too close to the roundabout entrance to comprehend the multiple lane choices and God help you if you pick the wrong lane. I tried to switch lanes when I screwed up and didn’t see the car that had entered the roundabout just behind and to the left. Yes, I’m a moron. He was NOT happy, and rightly so. The Powers That Be need to realize that people need some time to digest their options when approaching a maze like this.
If they don’t stop, they’ll veer across 3 lanes of traffic to get into the exit lane at the last second.
Personally, I think it’s a lack of awareness. They’re locked in the present moment so hard, that they’re not really thinking 5-30 seconds ahead like you have to when you’re approaching a freeway interchange. So they get into it, realize they’re not where they need to be, and then do something insane and unsafe because they still aren’t thinking ahead. Rather than coming to the conclusion that the safe thing to do would be to go around the roundabout again or to just go to the next exit and double-back, they come to the conclusion that it’s “now or never”, and act accordingly.
That seems to be the common thread in about 85% of crazy driving around here in Dallas. The other 15% seems to be predominantly just going way too fast or way too slow relative to the prevailing speed. When the prevailing speed is about 65-70, it’s equally unsafe to go 45-50 as it is to go 85-90, but neither side seems to understand that. It would help if there was a statutory minimum on highways- like no less than 20 mph under the posted limit or something like that, and if cops would enforce it.
Speed bumps are perpendicular to the path of travel, so the snow plow blade will rise and drop over the speed bump, but the lane dividers are parallel to the path of travel, so a snow plow blade will run into them. But I suspect snow is a bit unusual in San Benito County.
We don’t really have speed bumps up where I live. I can think of one road that sort of has one, but it’s about 5 feet wide by 6 inches high. I think a couple of parking lots have one or two.
Because of snow clearing, you cannot park on town streets from… I think 2 am to 6 am. Something like that. Even in designated parking areas where you have to have a sticker/pay for. My Wife often goes into work early (like 5am). She will park in a ‘reserved’ spot and then move her car at 6am when it’s allowed on the street.
The guard rails on roads also get destroyed by plows. The ones that are cables get torn to shreds. The regular ones, do a little better. No doubt the plow trucks take a beating too.
Like I said, there is a kinda similar roundabout near here. Green merges into yellow. Cyan and yellow do have to wait for green, but in practice this isn’t really an issue. Even at the busiest of times the wait is usually fairly minimal.
Note that it uses the same lane-shifting idea, but there are no physical barriers between lanes. If you want to do a full 360 around the circle multiple times, there’s nothing to stop you. You just have to switch to the innermost lane over one of the dashed lines.
There are only two incoming lanes, not three, but having cyan and yellow both wait for green isn’t a problem.
It should also be noted that there is an extra “bypass the entire traffic circle” option for yellow (folks coming in from the west) to help alleviate the higher traffic along that path.
It’s not illegal to do a U-turn (meaning to return to your entrance to exit) or circle the roundabout more than once at most roundabouts. In fact, for drivers who’ve missed their exit, the official suggestion is to go around again. It may be illegal to do this at this turbo roundabout.
Turbo roundabouts were invented in the Netherlands and they have a fair number of them. Link below is to a (no doubt, partial) list of turbo roundabouts. Note that most are in the Netherlands, although some are in other European countries. This one near Hollister is only the second in the US; the other is in Jacksonville. (The Hollister turbo is on the second page of the list.)
I think it looks like a crazy custom intersection someone built in Cities Skylines using a lot of mods.
I wonder about traffic using the innermost lane that requires them to yield for an opening in multiple lanes of traffic before entering the roundabout.
It looks a bit different in that in a traditional roundabout, I only need to yields to the outermost lane to enter the roundabout, after which, I can exit once I get to my exit point. This one you need to pick which lane based on where you plan to exit. So If there are three lanes and I want to pick the innermost one associated with my exit, I need to wait until the other two lanes are clear.
In a regular multi-lane roundabout, you have to yield to all lanes and only use the appropriate lane for your desired exit, otherwise you’ll cross into the path of someone who did follow the rules. (It’s not especially intuitive IMO, and the earliest examples in my area ended up being re-striped to only have one lane. Others have big “BOTH LANES” signs under the yield signs.)
This makes more sense to me. The scallops in the turbo roundabout appear to be designed to stop you doing that inward-merge, but in the example you showed, there’s simply no reason to forbid such a merge - in the example you depicted, when you cross that dashed line to remain in the innermost circuit, you’re not merging or competing with other traffic at all.
In the turbo roundabout, trying to get back into the centre may potentially clash with another car that came across behind you, into the scallop, and then turned and accelerated alongside you on your left side.
