
Traffic Roundabouts Spread in U.S. - stretchwithme
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/us/19roundabouts.html
======
cstross
For real fun, try meeting the Magic Roundabout in Hemel Hempstead for the
first time at night, in heavy rain that obscures the lane markings ...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempste...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_\(Hemel_Hempstead\))

(I survived, but it was a close-run thing!)

~~~
philjackson
There's one in Swindon which I did recently. I was surprised at how intuitive
it felt. Or maybe I was surprised I made it to the other side...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)>

~~~
rasur
Also in Colchester - it's been there a few years now. It confused a lot of
people when introduced IIRC.. Although when you get used to them, they can
really speed up the traversal from one side to the other.

------
petercooper
Roundabouts are no panacea and are commonly used in situations where other
solutions would make sense.

One example is when a minor road crosses a major one. At rush hour, the
traffic going straight across can saturate the roundabout. You end up with
congestion in all directions due to both faster traffic having to slow down
for the roundabout on the major road and the traffic on the minor road being
"stuck" waiting for a gap. A crossroads with lights would work better in this
situation but these are less common in the UK for large intersections.

~~~
rue
No, but the 80-90% of situations they are suited for, they make safer and more
efficient.

~~~
pierrefar
Can you cite research about the safety of roundabouts? I've heard this
argument a few times and don't believe it. What's the evidence?

~~~
marcusbooster
From the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety:
<http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/roundabouts.html>

This study* found: 39% overall decrease in crashes and a 76% decrease in
injury-producing crashes. Collisions involving fatal or incapacitating
injuries fell as much as 90%.

* <http://www.iihs.org/sr/pdfs/sr3505.pdf>

~~~
jyu
It's hard to crash and/or die in bumper to bumper traffic.

------
ugh
Roundabouts seem to be spreading internationally, too. That’s at least my
experience. My small hometown in Germany (pop. 40,000) went from no
roundabouts only ten years ago to at least four today. My even smaller
university town (pop. 30,000) also has at least four brand new roundabouts. My
own impression is that roundabouts were very uncommon in Germany only a few
years ago but are no uncommon sight today.

I have never heard of any protest against them in Germany, only recently the
exact opposite happened: the city wanted to put a traffic light at an
intersection which lead many people to demand (unsuccessfully, in the end) a
roundabout.

------
Eil
Roundabouts make a lot of sense when designed properly, and in the right
place. I love them (they're just plain fun to drive through), but these are
probably the top issues:

1\. We mid-westerners, by and large, have never seen a roundabout before, let
alone know how to properly drive through them. They weren't even so much as
mentioned in driver's training classes around here until a few years ago.
Whenever a new one goes up, there's a lot of confusion. The most common
problem is misunderstanding or ignoring the yield sign: Some people treat the
roundabout like a circular four-way stop and others just zoom in without
yielding and cut off the traffic already in the circle.

2\. Inconsistent entrance and lane rules. We have two major roundabouts in
this town, both installed within the last five years. One of them prohibits
lane changes inside the circle, one doesn't. At one of them, traffic entering
the roundabout yields to traffic in the roundabout. In the other, vice versa.

3\. Building roundabouts in an area for no good reason. On I-75 outside of
Saginaw, there's an overpass with on and off ramps. A few years ago, they tore
out the traditional traffic signal used on every single other on/off ramp in
the state and instead put a roundabout on each end of the bridge. This was a
very silly thing to do because the traffic volume was not that high in the
first place. Moreover, it's a very industrial area with lots of big trucks and
oversize loads that now have to navigate the roundabout very slowly and very
carefully just to stay in the lane and not run into passenger vehicles whose
drivers aren't paying attention.

------
jeandenis
While living in France, I read a piece which claimed that roundabouts were
safer in part because individuals perceive them as more dangerous (than
lights, etc.). This leads people to pay more attention and be more careful
when faced with a roundabout, which in turn leads to safer driving generally.
If this psychological observation is correct, then what scares us about
switching to roundabouts in the U.S. might be exactly what will make it safer
to adopt them.

Also, Slate had a piece on roundabouts and safety with the following quote:

"Mentioning roundabouts seems to invoke some form of the famous "availability
bias," which leads people make judgments based on the memories that can be
brought most easily to mind. And so, the American who may have driven as a
tourist in France or Greece a number of years back will shudder with
recognition, associating the roundabout with terror and near misses. But
motorists with such memories often fail to consider that they were driving as
tourists in unfamiliar climes, perhaps only for a few days."

<http://www.slate.com/id/2223035/>

\---

As a side note, there is something ironic about the pro-American / anti-Europe
arguments that inevitably surrounds the roundabout discussion. It feels to me
like roundabouts are much more American, following the libertarian strand
running deep in this country. Round-about = gov't no longer tell you when you
may (green) or may not go (red). Instead, it forces you to trust in yourself
and your fellow citizens.

------
wanderr
I grew up in a state that makes heavy use of roundabouts, but they call them
rotaries. In general they worked wonderfully for traffic control although I
did see the end results of a horrific accident when someone managed to go the
wrong way on one causing a head-on collision. The ramps were highly angled in
the "right" direction so they must have done it on purpose, although I can't
imagine why.

Now I'm in another city where they are adding them all over the place
including a street I commute to every day. The roundabouts here are
significantly more dangerous than the ones we had where I grew up. Not only do
people here not know how to use them (it's not like they are making people re-
take their drivers license tests after installing these things), but they are
not as well designed; most of the roundabouts here are being retrofitted into
existing small intersections that used to be four-way stops. There's not
enough room to curve everything the way so if someone goes when it's not their
turn, it's going to be a right-angle collision.

I think roundabouts are great in theory, but they need to be done right and
people need to be made to learn how to use them.

------
iwr
Don't underestimate the idiocy of traffic planners. In my town we have
roundabouts _and_ stoplights on the roads leading in.

~~~
stingraycharles
Yep, we have them over here too in The Netherlands. This roundabout in my
hometown scores very high on my dangerous-situations-you-rather-avoid list:

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/KeizerKar...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/KeizerKarelpleinNijmegen.jpg)

Traffic lights for getting on and off the roundabout, and traffic that enters
the roundabout actually has precedence over traffic that's already on it,
contrary to common roundabout rules. Lots of accidents happen because of it,
and I have no idea what made people think this was a good idea.

~~~
jeroen
That's not a roundabout, it's a traffic circle. The article calls them
monstrosities and not without reason (although they aren't all that bad).

------
loupgarou21
I know of four roundabouts in my area (Minnesota.) Two work just fine and are
properly marked.

One is completely useless, it's actually a series of 6 roundabouts attempting
to control traffic in a shopping complex. The traffic level is so low that it
might as well be normal, uncontrolled intersections.

One is used instead of a cloverleaf or stoplights to control the on/off ramps
to a freeway. It's terribly marked and there is no way to know what lane you
need to be in or where you ultimately need to go unless you've used it before.
I have actually seen people get so confused that they just slam on their
brakes and stop in the middle of the thing.

------
madcaptenor
A _lot_ of intersections in residential neighborhoods in Berkeley are very
small roundabouts, about twenty feet across. This is part of the city's
traffic calming policy
(<http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/contentdisplay.aspx?id=8238>) , which also
includes such things as random intersections that you just can't go through if
you're in a car. As someone who doesn't have a car, I appreciate this, but I
imagine that if I drove in town I'd be quite frustrated by the inability to
use side streets. (Indeed, the main roads seem to be quite crowded.)

------
axod
Here's one of my local roundabouts:

[http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#...</a><p>(It's a large
roundabout with 5 small roundabouts around it. Such that you can go round the
large roundabout in either direction).<p>Great news the US is moving toward
sanity.

~~~
spanx
Hah, I had to drive around that on my driving test. I distinctly remember the
sinking feeling as we approached it.

Aced it mind.

------
stretchwithme
We called them traffic circles in Syracuse New York. I drove through plenty of
them in Ireland too, clockwise, which is a trip until you adapt to it.

I dream about roundabouts every time I'm stuck at a light in Silicon Valley
and absolutely nothing is crossing the intersection. During rush hour here,
the light stays green in one direction for several minutes, so you wait around
a lot before you can get on to te main thoroughfares.

~~~
petercooper
_I dream about roundabouts every time I'm stuck at a light in Silicon Valley
and absolutely nothing is crossing the intersection._

Rather than redesign the road, this could be resolved with intelligent traffic
lights that notice traffic flow (or lack of it). The lights in my town change
to this mode after dark and often I'll see them turn to red but a few seconds
later go back to green as I approach them.

~~~
joezydeco
Intelligent lights still won't work as well in a lot of situations.
Roundabouts are just more natural.

Think of a situation where four cars approach a roundabout at exactly the same
time. With a roundabout (and I've driven this exact situation in Germany)
everyone can smoothly enter at the same time and continue on. No technology
needed.

What would the intelligent stoplight do?

~~~
petercooper
It's a tradeoff.

The OP was referring to waiting at lights in Silicon Valley, an area where
there are literally thousands of 4 way intersections (as in most US cities).
It would be impossible to convert every intersection (or even 10% of them) to
roundabouts effectively (within a reasonable budget and maintaining the number
of lanes American drivers are used to).

It would be easier to maintain the road layout and use intelligent lights to
make the junction, say, 50% more efficient, than spend large amounts of cash
making the junction, say, 80% or even 90% more efficient with roundabouts.

------
Dramatize
Will the use of the metric system be next?

