31–40 of 199 posts
I grew up near a city called Birmingham in the UK which has it's share of... disturbing junctions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ways,_Birmingham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravelly_Hill_Interchange They look insane on a map, they must have been hellish to navigate before GPS.
Spaghetti junction is still hellish...
When I was visiting the UK, I ended up driving through this intersection a couple of times. It wasn't really a big deal, even for someone not used to roundabouts or driving on the left.
Right - people tell me they find roundabouts really confusing but I say: imagine a one way street, and you're joining it at a T-junction. If you're in the UK the one-way street is going left. If you're in Europe or America it's going right. That's literally all a roundabout is. You can forget about the fact that it's circular. There's no extra rules I believe.
If it's a multi-lane roundabout, it's important to use the correct lane. Other drivers will expect someone in the appropriate lanes to stay/exit the roundabout accordingly.
The traffic engineer who managed to convince authorities that this was the solution to their problems must've been very charismatic.
Something of a roundabout afficionado it seems [0] ... also ex British Airforce, which given the odd way that the brits assign status, could provide alternative explanations for this madness beyond charisma .... he hadn't even 10 years experience as a working civil engineer when he came up with this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Blackmore
That's not even the best "Magic Roundabout", the one in my town is much better! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempst...
I grew up near a city called Birmingham in the UK which has it's share of... disturbing junctions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ways,_Birmingham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravelly_Hill_Interchange They look insane on a map, they must have been hellish to navigate before GPS.
When I was visiting the UK, I ended up driving through this intersection a couple of times. It wasn't really a big deal, even for someone not used to roundabouts or driving on the left.
Right - people tell me they find roundabouts really confusing but I say: imagine a one way street, and you're joining it at a T-junction. If you're in the UK the one-way street is going left. If you're in Europe or America it's going right. That's literally all a roundabout is. You can forget about the fact that it's circular. There's no extra rules I believe.
The traffic engineer who managed to convince authorities that this was the solution to their problems must've been very charismatic.
Something of a roundabout afficionado it seems [0] ... also ex British Airforce, which given the odd way that the brits assign status, could provide alternative explanations for this madness beyond charisma .... he hadn't even 10 years experience as a working civil engineer when he came up with this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Blackmore
> Despite opposition to his concept from many in an engineering profession known for its conservatism, his roundabout designs were formally written into government design manuals in 1975. By this time his experiments had become increasingly radical. Among these were the “magic roundabout” in Swindon in 1972 and multi-ring junction in Hemel Hemp-stead in 1973.
> Such junctions comprising as many as six mini-roundabouts — like a series of cogs in a piece of industrial machinery — did cause some chaos when first encountered by bewildered motorists. But Blackmore proved that the multi-roundabouts reduced speed, increased through-put and aided traffic flow. However, the idea was perhaps one step too far for an incredulous engineering profession, and it never really caught on.
http://trbroundabouts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Frank-B...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right - people tell me they find roundabouts really confusing but I say: imagine a one way street, and you're joining it at a T-junction. If you're in the UK the one-way street is going left. If you're in Europe or America it's going right. That's literally all a roundabout is. You can forget about the fact that it's circular. There's no extra rules I believe.
What about the fact it has two lanes?
If you're about to turn off then be on the inside lane. If you're not turning off then be on the outside lane.
The traffic engineer who managed to convince authorities that this was the solution to their problems must've been very charismatic.
They look scarier than they are in practice. What I hate more is those massive roundabouts with traffic lights on where dual carriageways meet. On those things you still have a mix of cars who don't know where they're going and lanes to be away of, but in addition you have traffic lights and cars moving at much higher speeds than on magic roundabouts.
[1] As an example https://www.google.com/maps/@41.3748215,2.1491456,232m/data=...