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there is nothing new about them but I am not a big fan. For some folks they cause confusion and I don't think a atop light causes any confusion at all.
Seems to me engineers are in love with them and are pushing them on the public. I have never heard any public outcry to install them around here but they keep coming anyway................
This thread puzzles me. I go through our circles easily twice a day, been doing it for a dozen years, and I rarely see any problems. And we have a lot of old people around here. Now these are 2 rural 40 MPH roads that merge at both circles, maybe that makes a difference, but at no time during the day is the circle actually empty so they get a fair amount of traffic.
Stop lights and stop signs make you stop, obviously. The majority of the time at our circles I merely pause, the longest wait is maybe 10 seconds. There is no way you will convince me a light or a sign will be more efficient, especially when 4 way stops cause more confusion IMO as people tend to not know whose turn it is.
Last edited by DaveinMtAiry; 07-30-2014 at 06:06 AM..
I blew out a tire last year when my right rear wheel scraped the lip on a roundabout. (We call them rotaries.) The lip is stupidly the same color as the road, and at night it's near impossible to distinguish them. The day this happened it was almost 100 degrees and I had two dogs and groceries in the car. I pulled into a market and fortunately two truckers on break got the donut on my tire rim so I could hobble home. I felt like suing the town I was so mad.
I have no problem whatsoever with traffic circles. We have three near here which I negotiate often in my "travels."
Biggest problem I ever had was in Sacramento, CA. The disability community began a series of lawsuits thanks to a shyster lawyer and in addition to costing businesses untold millions to accommodate each, any and every disability known to man, and probably some man hasn't even thought of yet, they put handicap ramps at nearly every intersection in the city, extending them out into the roadways themselves. At night they weren't all that visible and I'm sure many a wheel alignment was required by people hitting them after dark.
The point with roundabout collisions is that they are lower speed fender smashers rather than high speed T bones.
This presentation shows why "they" are promoting their use, and also distinctions between the new style truck-eating roundabout and the old larger diameter traffic circles: Safety Aspects of Roundabouts - FHWA Safety Program
Fortunately, before i vacationed in Ireland, I had encountered a few OMG! "roundabouts" in Washington, D.C. After much mental preparation before my trip and with a little assistance from my passenger (singing "To the left, to the left, to the left, left, left" to the tune of The Lone Ranger ), I was able to drive to the left when entering the roundabouts in Ireland, including the one near the Dublin airport.
I like roundabouts. If you are unfamiliar with an unusually busy roundabout and don't have sufficient time to determine ahead of time which spoke of the circle is your exit, take a deep breath and proceed with the knowledge that you can circle the roundabout until you find the right exit. No big deal.
OMG they make them with more than one lane?????????? Crikey!!!!!!
Most of ours are two lanes. One for right turns and one for left turns or straight ahead. Actually I think you can choose to go straight in both lanes, now that I think about it. They sure make you pay attention regardless of which way you are going!
If they were the traditional four-way stop...or just with stop sign...wouldn't you have to stop anyway...and start again? It wouldn't matter how fast the road speed is...you still have to stop...or at least yield..and then go. Wouldn't that also be rough on a car and mileage as well? I agree about 18 wheelers going on those roundabouts. Doesn't even have to be an 18-wheeler. I'd be a nervous wreck driving a 26 footer U-Haul truck on those roundabouts. But they're here to stay...so we might as well accept them...and drive more carefully around them.
The main road here had NO stop signs. It is the bypass they put in to eliminate traffic through our VERY small 'downtown'. The only stop signs were the ones for the streets emptying out onto the bypass so we could stay at 45 the whole way. Now we can't.
I don't have to mess with them much because the routes I take, usually, don't have them. Only if I'm going out of town or running errands in the next town over. And even then I have different routes I can take. I guess they are putting them in rather than traffic lights, which is okay with me. Traffic lights hold you up longer than a roundabout, for sure.
It must be a New England thing. we have them everywhere and no one every seems to be flustered. the only time its annoying is when someone who i sin the rotary in front of you stops to let someone in....
many have a limited ability to turn their heads with ease due to neck problems.
If someone's that decrepit and driving in a US metropolitan area, they're living on borrowed time anyway.
The two advantages of roundabouts are
1. improved safety, since you MUST slow down, at least a little, while you can zip through a traditional intersection at any speed you like. Thus, you may have a fender bender, but at least will not be smashed into the shape and size of a cupcake by that 18-wheeler. Here we also find the reasoning behind roundabouts in the middle of nowhere, so that people will slow down to something approaching the speed limit.
2. improved traffic flow, since there are no lights that create stop-go-stop situations the whole time.
That is, obviously, if drivers are aware of how they are supposed to go through the roundabout, and don't act like it's not there or they're the Kings of the Universe that all shall yield to.
Here in CA I'd say at least half the drivers either don't know, or flagrantly violate, the rights-of-way at 4-way stops. Here is one of the more extreme examples:
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), I was able to drive to the left when entering the roundabouts in Ireland, including the one near the Dublin airport. 
