Roundabouts: Pros & Cons and why usa hasn't embraced them

Best thing since sliced bread. Cuts down the traffic and never had a problem with them.

 

I think they can help on slower roads, but every time I go back to Ireland I'm always amazed when I have to haul the car down from 90mph for a roundabout on a highway. I don't know why they didn't just build overpasses in the first place, but they didn't (at least on the Dublin - Belfast road).

They have some roundabouts in NJ, except they're called circles here. They work pretty well, but the thing I find strange is that, unlike in Ireland, the car in the roundabout doesn't necessarily have the right of way. A classic example is the intersection of I-287 and Rt 206, which is always a guessing game for me.

I know they have them up in MA too. I think they call them rotarys there.

 

they are starting to pop up on the smaller roads around Maryland (have been for a while now i guess). i've actually seen traffic lights and four way stops dug up and replaced with round-abouts locally. personally, i'm all for them on back roads, but i don't think its a good idea to do it with major thoroughfares (spelling?) in the US with how bad many of our drivers are.

 

they're the main cost of accidents and traffic jam here...

 

Only an idiot would think roundabouts are a good thing.

The only advantage of a roundabout is that you can drift easier.

However, complete stops allow you to do burnouts on demand.

 

The animated gif of the roundabout you posted is close to ideal in design. Of note, there is only one exit lane. If that's the way Europe's roundabouts are designed, kudos to them.

Singapore has a few small roundabouts and a major one called Newton circus. This latter is a very busy roundabout that (IMHO) is poorly designed. There are traffic lights to direct traffic during peak periods (which kind of negates the point of a roundabout, so it's a stupid stop-gap solution). During most times, the lights are left off and drivers are left to their own judgement to follow the rules. Mind you, traffic is still heavy at these times.

There are around five inlet/outlets to the circus. The usual rules apply : give way to traffic already on the roundabout, and the usual pitfalls with errors in judgement arise. But the more major problem is lane discipline. There are often *two* exit lanes, and the roundabout itself has three lanes. So it becomes confusing : can one exit from the middle lane while keeping to the appropriate exit lane, or should one only exit from the outermost lane? Also, is it permissible for a driver to continue along the circus while travelling in the outermost lane?

I would answer 'yes' to the first and 'no' to the second but other drivers apparently have different ideas on the matter. I have been in situations where I have tried exiting from the center lane of the roundabout only to be blocked, horned and glared at by the driver in the outermost lane who insists on continuing round the circus without exiting.

Of course, if it were dead easy to get to the outermost lane just before exiting, there would be no issues, but Singaporean drivers are generally bad tempered asswipes. If one signals, one is pretty much guaranteed a heroic blocking maneuver by other drivers to prevent a merge. So non-confident drivers prefer to muddle along in the outer lane to avoid having to do a last minute merge, leading to situations like I described above.

In short, well designed circuses = very good for traffic control. Badly designed circuses coupled with drivers without good etiquette = recipe for disaster.

 

They have one here on Guam and I love it, but in general no I don’t think the average American could handle them.

 

The city of Sarasota is planning one at the corner of Fruitville Rd and US41 (for those who know the area). BIG, BIG mistake IMO. Ever seen old people try to navigate a traffic circle? This is practically next to my office. Not good!

RMX

 

We have some roundabouts on side streets in Orlando, frankly, if people don't know the proper four way stop procedure how can anyone expect them to handle a four way yield! In heavy traffic situations they would be unmanagable. You should have been here during the aftermath of Hurricane Charlie, with no power to the stop lights, man driving manners went to hell fast.

 

Way to kiil a thread

 

I love roundabouts and the U.S. needs more of them. I lived in Australia for a couple years and saw how efficient they were and easy to learn (even driving on the left side of the road). I drive through 3 4-way stops on my way to work and half the time no one is at the intersections but I have to come to a complete stop anyway. During the high traffic times of the day these intersections would run so much smoother with a roundabout than everyone having to come to a complete stop. Yielding instead of stopping also helps to save on gas.

I can see roundabouts causing some confusion at first, but people could quickly adapt including the bad drivers. Wasn't there an article in Autoweek or somewhere a couple months ago about a roundabout that was built near a mall somewhere in the states? It seems like they had some fender benders at first but overall the accidents in those intersections were down and congestion was reduced. Roundabouts also force people to slow down instead of them blowing stop signs and red lights and causing very serious accidents.

 

we have many roundabouts here, on simple intersections which include two single-lane (each-way) roads crossing perpendicularly they are a godsend, even during busy periods there's much less wait time (if any) to get through.

however, as soon as it becomes a multi-lane affair with multiple exits it becomes an absolute nightmare.

take this for example: googlemap

it's 500 metres from the CBD and so during peak hour it's absolute nonsense, nobody knows which way to go and all the headlights coming and going confuse the crap out of people and if you're not stuck there for 10 minutes at a time then chances are you've just white-knuckled the steering wheel and planted the foot and hoped for the best.
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There's a roundabout on Rt. 2 near Concord - during morning rush-hour, its a massive CLUSTER*U*K. Otherwise, its not 'bad'. I think roundabouts are not-at-all popular here in the US because most drivers here make terrible judgements regarding who has the 'right-of-way' all the time. Roundabouts make that judgement-call even worse - besides, we have drivers here who don't cede right-of-way to anyone, regardless of whether they really have it or not. LOTS of self-absorbed drivers in MA who think they and their schedule are more important than anyone elses.

Ever hear of a 'New England Yield'? Its where you enter (read: bulldoze into) a freeway at 70mph without slowing down at all to look for any traffic in the right-most lane, forcing evasive maneuvers from traffic behind the entering car. Our state can't even enforce basic traffic yields - roundabouts will be EXCELLENT business for insurance companies and body shops.....

 

There are a few roundabouts in Portland, OR and they seem to work just fine. I personally like them much more then intersections.

 

The first ones that I remember seeing were in Vail Colorado about 8 years ago, we've got them sprouting up in a few places here.

 

Eugene Oregon has a couple also, granted not very big but Aspen Colorado has a decent sized one.
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Got one on a road near my house, worst thing ever. No one pays attention to the lanes (people in the inside lanes turn right almost constantly). Big cause of accidents.

 

Well I don't understand everything I know about roundabouts. I've been to England and Ireland and got along pretty well with them. I seen a few roundabouts here in the us and my problem is that the guy with the phone stuck in his ear just barrels on through without regard for anyone else in the traffic system. Same with the woman who is applying makeup, beating the kids in the back seat, and Mr Change your pants while driving doesn't give me a lot of confidence in them either. So my point of view on roundabouts in the US is that it's just not worth the stress of dealing with them.

I think they would be cheaper to build and maintain over the long haul becasue of the lack of traffic lights. Overcrosses are going for about twenty million a piece on the low end so they are not the answer in my opinion.

Bob Wassam

 

The one major round-about that I've driven was Dupont Circle in DC. Quite possibly one of the worst experiences ever. I was somehow able to make it through going in the correct directions... but to this day I still have no Idea how. It was bad enough that there was a 'median' all the way around the circle, but adding stop-lights to the mix just made it even worse.

whatever... round-abouts + traffic = BAD IDEA

 

A few really awful intersections in Portland have been replaced with these devices, and they work wonderfully. For the first few days they're a big mess while the idiots adjust, but after that everything is great. There are still people who drive waaaaaaaay too slow around them, but for the most part they're pretty cool. When the sun goes down and the roads are empty, they double as sweet skidpads!

 

We have a couple roundabouts in Orlando. Windermere, a small town on the westside of Orlando, recently installed a couple when they re-did main street. It works well, but it's just a single lane circle, no need for two or three lanes. That would be too complicated here for people in FL, lol.

 

they put one in san antonio tx, at a normally 5 way junction... only a single lane one... i would say that about 20% of the people who use it know what to do, i see people stop while in the roundabout to let other people in, people pull out then reverse back in... its a mess, i have had more close calls there than at anyother junction, its just that nobody is taught what to do at them and there are no "yield" signs anywhere