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Safety benefits of roundabouts

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Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#101

Post by Tade0 »

swatcoder wrote: post #45
polemic wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roundabouts are great (and common where I live), but a downside is they can be difficult for pedestrians to cross. You need crossings that are set back from the exits, but this also makes it a longer path for the pedestrian.

Yes, they're absolutely horrid for pedestrians. Drivers anticipating their merge into roundabout are often too distracted to notice pedestrians intending to cross, and any pedestrian crossing the outflow of a roundabout can trigger a traffic backup that interferes with the flow of the circle itself and surprise drivers who expect it to stay moving. They have their benefits in some intersections, but they also have tr…

I can't agree.

For one, both entering and leaving the roundabout happens at low speeds, so there's very little chance of getting hit at high speed.

Second, the drivers are necessarily doing turns, so their blind spots move around quickly, which makes it easier to scan the area for pedestrians.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#102

Post by da768 »

josephg wrote: post #92
rwmj wrote: post #11

If you like roundabouts, try a roundabout of roundabouts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempst... This is near where I live and it is indeed safe, mainly because everyone drives incredibly slowly and cautiously since the experience is scary as hell.

> because everyone drives incredibly slowly and cautiously since the experience is scary as hell Apparently there are fewer accidents on the roads when the traffic lights aren’t working. The reason is exactly that - everyone is terrified and drives really slowly to make up for it.

Over here everyone takes dead lights for green lights/no lights

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#103

Post by pandaman »

hristov wrote: post #20

The greatest thing about roundabouts is that they protect against the idiot that goes through an intersection at full speed. He does that either because he is passed out behind the wheel or because he did not notice a stop sign and thought he had the right of way, or maybe because he just does not care. Well with a roundabout if you just go straight ahead you hit the center circle. Good roundabouts always have a slig…

The protection is just by hiding half of the traffic beyond an obstacle, you can still get t-boned on the roundabout, but only by the cars from your right and not from both directions like on an intersection. I guess it's a plus but with the added danger of a head-on collision from people traversing the roundabout in the wrong way I won't say if it's net-positive safety-wise with any degree of confidence.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#104

Post by JohnFen »

tunesmith wrote: post #81

Two-lane roundabouts still confuse me a bit. Even the video tutorial in that article has what looks like a problem to me. At 1:06, the pink car in the right lane skips the first exit. How does the orange car in the left lane know it's safe to take the second exit? That's a collision risk right there if the pink car wants to continue counter-clockwise.

Multilane roundabouts in my part of the US are absolutely terrifying because people don't know how to use them. Accidents and close calls are amazingly common. As a result, I drive out of my way to ensure that I avoid them.

Simple roundabouts are fine.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#106

Post by hermitcrab »

rwmj wrote: post #11

If you like roundabouts, try a roundabout of roundabouts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempst... This is near where I live and it is indeed safe, mainly because everyone drives incredibly slowly and cautiously since the experience is scary as hell.

Swindon laughs at Hemel's sad excuse for a magic roundabout. The true roundabout connoisseur knows that the roundabouts should overlap.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#107

Post by Enginerrrd »

devnull3 wrote: post #68

Simple roundabouts are definitely good but in UK I have found spiral roundabouts error prone if you have not driven on it before Example: [1] When visiting for the first time on a specific spiral roundabout: 1. Lane markings are faded 2. You do not know the specific lane unless you come very close to it and have to make a quick decision 3. Often due to queued traffic you cannot even see the lane marking until its too…

Transportation engineer here: Multi-lane roundabouts don't typically have any safety benefits. Single lane roundabouts do.

Also, on the small side where you have traffic circles rather than roundabouts, those also suck.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#108

Post by hermitcrab »

Jtsummers wrote: post #29
hristov wrote: post #20

The greatest thing about roundabouts is that they protect against the idiot that goes through an intersection at full speed. He does that either because he is passed out behind the wheel or because he did not notice a stop sign and thought he had the right of way, or maybe because he just does not care. Well with a roundabout if you just go straight ahead you hit the center circle. Good roundabouts always have a slig…

As long as that center circle is high enough. I had a woman in a Toyota (Camry?) fly over one at about 45+mph and slam into me as I looped around it. Totaled her car, broke parts off my Explorer (repairable). Her son then tried to attack me with my bumper. She kept insisting I turned in front of her (technically true, I was in a roundabout). She was arrested for drunk driving, and, later on, fined for all the flowers…

I came up to a roundabout near Henley in the UK and saw a little lady in a big BMW driving around it the wrong way. It was particularly terrifying as I was on a motorbike. I dread to think what would have happened if I had got there a few seconds earlier.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#109

Post by kibwen »

JohnFen wrote: post #104
tunesmith wrote: post #81

Two-lane roundabouts still confuse me a bit. Even the video tutorial in that article has what looks like a problem to me. At 1:06, the pink car in the right lane skips the first exit. How does the orange car in the left lane know it's safe to take the second exit? That's a collision risk right there if the pink car wants to continue counter-clockwise.

Multilane roundabouts in my part of the US are absolutely terrifying because people don't know how to use them. Accidents and close calls are amazingly common. As a result, I drive out of my way to ensure that I avoid them. Simple roundabouts are fine.

As a bicyclist, I avoid multi-lane roundabouts like my life depends on it... because it does. Utterly nightmarish experience. This is why I despair every time someone is like "let's build more roundabouts in the US!" No, what you're missing is that all our roads are already too wide and all we get are multi-lane roundabouts, which are worse than intersections. At least at an intersection, I can see that one lane of traffic is already stopped, and know that it would take at least a moment to accelerate before hitting me.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#110

Post by JohnFen »

josephg wrote: post #95
DavidVoid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they include rather obscure rules as to which lane you are allowed to drive in at any moment and americans do not like to learn new rules. Do they? I guess it probably depends on the country. Here in Sweden I'm pretty sure you can drive in whatever lane you like (unless they're explicitly labeled). But normal lane-swithching rules apply ofc and, importantly, when you enter a roundabout you have to yield to traffic…

Yeah here in Australia, 2 lane roundabouts usually require that people taking the 1st exit use the outermost lane and people using the 3rd+ exits use the inner lane of the roundabout. (And if you’re going straight you can use either). If you’re in the inner lane of the roundabout and want to leave, you usually don’t change lane while in the roundabout, but signal and exit by cutting across the outer lane on your way…

> but signal and exit by cutting across the outer lane on your way out.

That's how most of the multilane ones are are in my part of the US, and that's what makes them terrifying to me. It requires too much trust that the other drivers are going to do the right thing.

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