

Roundabouts: The widening gyre (2013) - rfreytag
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21587234-parliamentary-democracy-roundabouts-are-great-british-export-risk-widening?fsrc=explainsdig

======
davidw
I used to work near here:

[https://www.google.com/maps/search/8th+and+townsend,+san+fra...](https://www.google.com/maps/search/8th+and+townsend,+san+francisco/@37.7703185,-122.40389,19z)

And people would regularly go the wrong way around the damn thing.

~~~
duncanawoods
Hmm, no surprise - its missing any form of signage beyond stop signs. Despite
being so much more common, you still get clear signifiers in the UK. e.g. you
get "to the left please sir" blue and white direction signs on approach for
all round-a-bouts:

[https://goo.gl/maps/nRtNC](https://goo.gl/maps/nRtNC)

And for more major intersections, you get massive "go left you muppet" black
and white chevron signs as well:

[https://goo.gl/maps/0KXoM](https://goo.gl/maps/0KXoM)

There is obvious ambiguity between curvacious T-junctions and roundabouts so
you really need some "go right you dude" and "I said right jerk" signage
especially given how less common they are.

------
tehabe
The other problem is, crossing with light signals are even worse than
roundabouts.

Well, cars are the worst invention of our time but that for another
discussion.

------
lorddoig
Interestingly that crazy looking magic roundabout serves a purpose. The
(seemingly correct) theory was that such a setup would slow people down and
make them cautious, thereby dispensing with the need for traffic lights and
allowing safe self-organisation.

------
SixSigma
The UK is replacing many of its roundabouts with traffic signals in order to
control the flow where one route across the junction dominates traffic
density.

~~~
kencausey
Simple domination doesn't seem like an adequate explanation. Is it the case
that the dominant traffic pattern effectively monopolizes the roundabout
making it difficult for other traffic to enter for significant periods of
time?

~~~
switch007
Yes. It's also an issue of the traffic traversing the roundabout at great
speed, making it very difficult to join.

I don't understand why they don't add traffic signals to the problem
roundabouts, operated when required. It would seem less disruptive.

~~~
kencausey
That sounds like a poorly designed roundabout to me. One recently added to my
relatively small city has a speed limit of 20 MPH (yes, I'm in the US) and
much more than 20 MPH seems too fast to me simply as a result of the radius of
the roundabout.

------
draven
One of the issues with roundabouts here (France) is that almost nobody is
using their turn signals or use the wrong one (they activate the left one
entering the roundabout and keep it on, making you think they'll keep on
turning around when they're about to exit the roundabout.) When you're waiting
to enter a roundabout it makes you wait a bit longer when a car is already
turning around.

~~~
arethuza
Signalling incorrectly on roundabouts is pretty common in the UK. In fact, I
would say only a minority of drivers signal correctly when turning right at a
roundabout.

~~~
switch007
I used to get pretty frustrated by it. I can't do anything about other
people's bad driving habits.

I now try and pay more attention to the speed at which they approach the
roundabout, and their lane positioning/angle. I probably take more "chances"
because I drive an auto with a bit of grunt.

------
evilolive
This article talks about gridlock but somehow fails to address throughput,
which is supposed to be the upside over the conventional 4-way stop.

[http://nextstl.com/2013/10/mythbusters-tackles-four-way-
stop...](http://nextstl.com/2013/10/mythbusters-tackles-four-way-stop-v-
roundabout-traffic-throughput/)

