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Safety benefits of roundabouts

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Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#111

Post by nemo44x »

I love roundabouts. Driving in the UK is a revelation. You just sort of keep going and driving is a bit more fun. The drivers are also better than in the USA. Which is why I think there’s often resistance here.

Every time a roundabout is proposed near me there’s a vocal group of opposers. I just don’t really get it since in many cases a roundabout is preferred to an intersection in my opinion. But one comment I read summarizes it I guess:

“Drivers here are just too dumb for a roundabout. We can trust them to think.”

And I guess I sort of agreed. Driving in America is weird because so many people do things like passing on the right, not using turn signals, and driving the wrong speed in whatever lane they’re in causing chaos.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#112

Post by kmeisthax »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #107
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.

wait I thought "traffic circle" and "roundabout" were synonyms

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#113

Post by solardev »

The just-released Cities: Skylines 2 video game also features roundabouts! They're a huge part of the transportation networks now: https://www.pcgamesn.com/cities-skylines-2/roundabouts

Mini Motorways also had them from the get-go, and they're much more robust than simple 3/4/5/6-way intersections.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#114

Post by ToucanLoucan »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #105

Long time Carmel, IN resident here, AMA. Yes, almost every intersection has a roundabout for a population around 100k. Yes, they are efficient. Yes, it’s a pain using them when people who don’t know how to use them, use them.

Checking in from WI here. We started getting a lot of them in the greater Green Bay area about a decade ago. It's better-ish lately, but there are still consistently issues with drivers who don't understand how they work, and there are frankly too many of them located around light-industrial areas. I have no idea how these get approved for those locations: for commuter cars, they're excellent. For LTL trucks, they are highly problematic, cause traffic backups, and due to the nature of those large vehicles, basically the only way they can proceed through them is to wait until there is no traffic at all in any direction, or simply pull forward and hope the driver in the roundabout can/will stop in time to avoid an accident.

It's also worth noting: this are notably more difficult to traverse during fresh snows. While starting and stopping is certainly an issue in snowy intersections, a roundabout introduces a lot of turning, and especially so in cases of spiral ones. Two-lane roundabouts basically have to become one lane during a heavy snow, there just isn't enough grip to safely maneuver one with multiple lanes. And that's with Wisconsin lanes, which are notably large among US states.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#115

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…

Reminds me of this fine example of an idiot in a van using a roundabout to attempt orbital insertion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyufxcEQPGc

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#116

Post by JohnFen »

kieranmaine wrote: post #91
swatcoder wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 disagree. As a pedestrian, I only have to worry about cars coming from 2 directions (on to/off the roundabout) instead of 4 at an intersection. I'm confused by your comment that drivers merging into a roundabout are too distracted. As a driver merging into a roundabout I find I have far less cognitive load. I only have to look for pedestrians crossing in front of me and cars coming from the left. When coming off th…

> As a driver merging into a roundabout I find I have far less cognitive load.

Excepting for single-lane roundabouts, I find they require a much higher cognitive load for me.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#117

Post by hermitcrab »

KaiserPro wrote: post #41
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…

It certainly has some protection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTk_kPeA63c (turn the sound off, its just road noise) This is what happens when you go full bore into a big roundabout. This kind of roundabout is used to join one large road to one or more small road (think two lanes going from 6-12 on the clock, with single lane road at 3 & 9) In the UK, we don't normally have stop signs, as most junctions have clear…

>The reason why they keep it is because there is literally nothing else interesting about the place.

Rude. ;0P

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#119

Post by hermitcrab »

gniv wrote: post #36

Here in France they have both types of roundabouts, yield-to-left-on-entry and yield-to-right. They are well signaled, so there is no confusion. The latter type is less common and seems to be mostly in less-busy areas. I'm not sure why they still use them though. Is it because you have better visibility to the right, since you're already in the intersection? It's an interesting design choice.

>there is no confusion

Maybe not if you grow up with it. But there certainly is if you are a British tourist, used to always giving way to the right.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#120

Post by Symbiote »

pandaman wrote: post #103
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.

I have never seen anyone go the wrong way around a roundabout, and I've never heard anyone tell me they've seen it. It's so rare you can ignore it.
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