Video description:
Roundabouts - the circular intersections seen all over Europe and elsewhere in the world - are said to be far safer than traffic lights. Research shows they reduce crashes, clear up congestion and save cities quite a bit of money. They have a heritage in the U.S., but America has a fraction of the roundabouts that far smaller countries like France, Spain and the United Kingdom have. But there are some states that are adopting them, and one small town in particular: Carmel, Indiana. The people of Carmel love their roundabouts and the mayor credits them with helping revitalize his city. So are they all they’re cracked up to be? And if so, why hasn’t the U.S. adopted them?
My mother in law, an idiot, says they’re too confusing. She’d rather sit at a light or deal with a stop sign than… Yield to anyone coming from the left. She says they’re more dangerous as well.
I’ve tried to explain the benefits but she won’t hear it.
The real truth is that it does not matter if you are confused. Roundabouts are safer, even for confused drivers. Even if you totally fuck them up, cut people off, go the wrong way. They are pretty much always safer than signal controlled intersections and usually safer than all way stops for the simple reason that they force speed reduction and eliminate head-on and T-bone collisions.
They are also cheaper in the long-term, far more attractive places for humans to exist in or near, and can generally handle higher traffic volumes without congestion.
Seems to me Americans despise any kind of unsubtle traffic calming – anything that makes them vroom vroom less – even if it factually reduces congestion & trip time length. Unless it’s on their own block, then they want more of it, because the true American suburban spirit is wanting dangerous traffic in other peoples’ neighborhoods.
Americans also seem to just enjoy the meme of “roundabouts are sooo confusing oh woe is me I am so scarrrred”. I don’t think people sincerely believe this shit. I think they just like repeating it for the same reason people talk about the weather. And they just repeat it so much that they forget it’s bullshit.
What roundabouts do fail at is something Americans LOVE – establishing fault. It’s harder to tell who did something wrong when incidents happen in roundabouts. There’s no unsubtle red light to establish blame. And establishing blame is the be-all and end-all to the American justice system. Harm reduction barely even factors in.
The ones they installed near my house need a revision. With the way the exits are positioned you can easily enter and exit (1 exit later, most used) at about 30mph if you use the painted inner shoulder. And people do. This doesn’t help that b/t those 2 exits is an entrance that cannot see the leftmost entrance until people are coming into it. Getting into the roundabout from that entrance is super dangerous.
And if I see one more motherfucker exit the circle from the inner lane without changing lanes I’m going to start assuming they won’t and get read-ended. Fuck their shiny chrome trucks and fuck their insurance premiums.
I’m complaining but I love roundabouts. More please. Just fix that one.
This is an issue where I live too. Also people like to randomly stop to let people in, when there is no one behind them.
Just as a reminder since the conversation is going to the same tired tropes:
Even still, safer. That potential collision from ignoring proper right of way in the roundabout is still a safer angle of attack at lower speeds.
@Neato If people were going through the intersection at 30mph with the roundabout, how fast would they be traveling those streets without it? The >>30mph streets are likely the fundamental issue here since I doubt anyone is accelerating into or in the roundabouts. I bet these are huge, wide, roads with big clearings in the easements to promote that high DOT letter grade (which, outside of expressways, correlates with the most dangerous roads).
Fairly high-speed roundabouts are possible, but if the road really needs such high speeds odds are pretty good you’d be smarter to have a simple stop (for a country road) or a more thoughtful design (for an urban road) to eliminate the need for a huge roundabout structure. Usually the “we tried nothing and are all out of ideas” approach North American designers take is to just make a massive, signal-controlled intersection and change nothing else about the overall street pattern.
Uh, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Anyone entering the roundabout must yield to both lanes. In this diagram, if the red car is going straight, it must yield to the green car, though the green car should prepare to dodge the red car if necessary:
My apologies. I didn’t explain correctly. In my case, the person exiting the circle from the inside lane is exiting into a single exit lane. The signage when entering the circle forbids this. You must change lanes to the right/outer lane before exiting certain exits.
So my situation, 2 cars are traveling in the circle, one in the inner lane, one outer. Both want to take the next exit, that’s a single lane. Inner car veers across outer lane to the exit, nearly hitting the other car.