Tips for Driving in a Roundabout (this is Dave Barry-quality writing)

The Truth About Cars ^ | 17 May 2013 | Doug DeMuro

[knarf]

That CAN’T be the US ... IS it ?

[Gaffer]

Yeah...they’re okay for the locals but bad news for visitors...I found the ones around Ft. Monmouth very ‘hidden’ if you will.

[arthurus]

In most American cities traffic circles do not make sense. They were designed long long ago in lands where inbound roads all led to central points in cities so that the main intersection might have 7 or even a dozen streets converging on a point. In the modern context such an intersection with lights would be nonsense and one would wait half a day for for a green light. In an American city laid out on a grid a roundabout just confuses things. In my little town the city put in several of these things in order to be "up to date" and "modern" and truth to tell- fashionably European. None of them is more than 100 feet in diameter.

Tulsa OK has a very well designed circle on the north side that keeps traffic running smoothly and does not slow it down. It is two lanes with the outside lane for entering and turning out or for going just to the next exit. It is the only American one of these things I have seen that seems to work well and as intended. Actually I suppose the circles here do what is intended namely they are badges of fashionability and payoffs to the road construction company that donated lots of money to the mayor's election campaign.

[informavoracious]

Funny stuff!

[liberalh8ter]

Tip #3: Don’t yield to traffic outside the roundabout. Once our NPR-loving friend in the 240DL gets into the roundabout, the real fun begins. As he approaches each entrance, he sees a waiting car and thinks: That used to be me! So he stops to let the other driver go, disrupting the flow of traffic. The sole exception is if the other driver is in a Scion tC, in which case he’s already forced his way into the roundabout and may be rolled over on the other side with techno music blaring.

LOL.....a most excellent skewer.

[CPOSharky]

Many years ago in Connecticut there was a rotary with stop signs ON the circle. Drivers on the circle had to stop for entering traffic. Makes you wonder what special kind of stupid ran the highway department.

[meyer]

Is a roundabout what we Massachusetians call a rotary ?

Yes. And in northeast Ohio, we called them 'traffic circles'.

It seems that governments love these things for some stupid reason. They speak of the awesome effect of "traffic calming" that comes from the roundabout. A much better solution would be a huge cloverleaf interchange and 70 mph speed limits on all major arteries.

Stopping and starting wastes fuel. Slowing and accelerating wastes fuel. And both waste time.

[MrB]

Look over there, kids, Big Ben!

[arthurus]

Rotaries are much easier, and every other facet of driving, too, if the driver knows where his car is on the road. Most people do not have any idea how large or where their car's "footprint" is. I would have disputed that until I finally gave in to the blandishments of a co-worker years ago and did an exercise with a simple 12 inch ruler. I carried it in the seat beside me and when coming home or parking most anywhere that I could drive up to a light pole or a wall. I would drive up to it and stop, no backing and filling, just stop, then get out and check the distance between the front bumper and the obstruction. It only took me three or 4 times doing this before I could stop every time within less than an inch of the length of the ruler. I could see the difference on the street, in fact it was glaring. I had a new and much more precise idea of just where every other car in my sight was. One effect is that I could now parallel park with fewer moves, more confidence, and less time. I can drive through much narrower spaces between obstructions, etc. I included the ruler exercise as well as map reading when I taught all four of my kids to drive. The skill is transferable to vehicles of different sizes and shapes without redoing the exercise.

Even if you are confident at the wheel try it, your perspective will change, maybe radically.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Our local roundabouts have a straight/left arrow as one approaches. My daughter, when learning to drive, mistook this for the option to go left or right when entering. She had an interesting experience when she took a left, and so did her mother.

[stayathomemom]

I've dealt with a few old roundabouts in my husband's home town of Alton, IL and neighboring St. Louis. They were not particularly busy, but I wasn't always sure where I was supposed to get off.
A few years ago, they started popping up in SE Michigan. My husband and I were heading up north to Mackinac Island and our first stay at the Grand Hotel when we encountered a triple one when we stopped for lunch early in our trip. I was sporting a broken leg and had spent the last two months in a wheel chair so I was really looking forward to this trip. Here was this impediment that had us both thinking we might be stuck in Brighton for the rest of our lives. So, while my husband went in to McBathooms to fetch our lunch, I figured out a plan of attack. I would navigate while he drove slowly through with his hazard lights on. We made it through successfully. I have since gotten more used to them. There are several in the Ann Arbor area which keep traffic moving in the land of interminable traffic lights. My daughter travels through a couple on her way home from work and has seen frustrated drivers drive right across the circle! (Hey, it IS Ann Arbor!)

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

They started in Europe. People that pushed them here had European Superiority Complex.

[whd23]

Thankfully, it is not. wiki

[ThanhPhero]

Sài Gòn and Nha Trang have a number of rotaries/roundabouts that are a heritage of the French colonials. They occur where several very broad avenues come together and are themselves quite large. It is one circumstance that slows down and seems to confuse the thousands of motorbikers that constitute most of the traffic. This is in cities where dense traffic does not stop at X intersections. The streams there just flow through each other somehow.

[BluH2o]

Going back a few years business would take me to the Boston area from time to time. Stopped for gas at a service station near a circle. While I was at the pump two cars collided in the circle the guy who worked there told me it happened all the time. In fact it wasn’t unusual for the local police to ask him if he witnessed an accident, even had calls from lawyers looking for witnesses ... his response was always I didn’t see anything ... not wanting to spend a great deal of time going to court as a witness.

[Starstruck]

Roundabouts are OK as long as you’re playing a little Boots Randolph to get you in the mood.

A little Yakety-Sax a la Benny Hill?

[Teacher317]

Looks like 12 in-roads on this one...

[Buckeye McFrog]

The utopian planners seem addicted to the idea of infesting us with these things. I know of 3 or 4 planned here in the Pittsburgh area. The only one we had previously was in a county park, where there is a 15 MPH speed limit. And even it was dangerous enough.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Yep

[Wyatt's Torch]

Good stuff. My only disagreement is that the Volvo would have a “Coexist” sticker on it...