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Safety benefits of roundabouts

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Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#351

Post by CalRobert »

viraptor wrote: post #343
CalRobert wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choice stress is what makes it safe, though. The driver _should_ be a bit stressed. And removing the possibility to change your mind in the roundabout reserves more mental capacity for looking for pedestrians (like me! Hi from Hilversum, which is pretty crappy by Dutch standards but a dream compared to anywhere else I've lived)

> And removing the possibility to change your mind in the roundabout reserves more mental capacity for looking for pedestrians I don't buy it. Ending up forced to take an unexpected exit in a city triggers a lot of things for me and none of those are pedestrians: - which lane should I be in for the quickest way back? - what are the rules on the road I'm turning into? (this may be extremely not obvious if you didn't r…

Right, and when the junction design forces you to take the route you already decided on all of those decisions are moot. You are forced to decide _before_ you're mid-junction with people going all sorts of different directions. When you take the wrong offramp do you back up on to the freeway?

The toll road example is fair, though I don't know the particulars of this in Australia.

I recently drove from Normandy to Amsterdam and halfway through Belgium I took the wrong exit and ended up adding 20 minutes to the drive. But it was fine.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#352

Post by zik »

dns_snek wrote: post #311
zik wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a documented effect of roundabouts that they tend to result in more pedestrian fatalities than other forms of intersection. But it does depend on the design - it's possible to improve pedestrian safety at the cost of traffic throughput. Guess which choice my country made...

Please share your sources because your claims defy common sense and all data I've seen on the topic. > Australia: Crash reduction after roundabout installed: 74% in the casualty crash rate; 32% in property damage only; 68% in pedestrian casualty crashes per year. > Netherlands: crash reduction at roundabouts: 73% in all pedestrian injury crashes; 89 % for pedestrian fatality; 63% for moped injuries; 30% for cycle inj…

I wasn't able to access the paper you referenced unfortunately.

Australia's rules regarding roundabouts prioritise vehicle throughput rather than pedestrian safety. Our road rules give cars priority at roundabouts - pedestrians don't normally get crosswalks and must take their chances dodging through the traffic. This isn't a flaw with roundabouts, it's a flaw in how Australia has chosen to implement them.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#353

Post by CalRobert »

denton-scratch wrote: post #341
CalRobert wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choice stress is what makes it safe, though. The driver _should_ be a bit stressed. And removing the possibility to change your mind in the roundabout reserves more mental capacity for looking for pedestrians (like me! Hi from Hilversum, which is pretty crappy by Dutch standards but a dream compared to anywhere else I've lived)

There was a fad a couple of decades ago for "mini-roundabouts". They woud install these at junctions with a record of accidents. They were dirt-cheap, because they consisted of simply a couple of roundabout signs, and a circular bump about 6" high and a yard or so across, with smooth sides (i.e. no curb, you could easily drive straight over the bump). The rationale for these things was that they induce uncertainty in…

Those roundabouts are crap and people just drive over them. They're effectively unmarked 4 way stops, at least in Ireland.

If it's physically possible to drive over something, drivers will. A round concrete blob won't matter.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#354

Post by CalRobert »

dtech wrote: post #221
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of lights and increase in number of crossings (for non-tiny ones) make them pretty terrible to cross as a pedestrian.

I live in NL which has a very high number of roundabouts and this is not my experience at all. Granted most have priority pedestrian crossings which people do respects.

Interestingly I have been surprised at how few drivers will stop to let me and my children cross in the Netherlands. If we walk in to the road they will stop, but I don't want to risk us getting run over. By comparison, I found that in Ireland people would _usually_ stop if you were clearly intending to cross the street.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#355

Post by dillydogg »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #345
ehnto wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia does well, but not everywhere. We also had our few decades of automania, that saw our tram lines ripped up in the burbs, and sprawl reach outward with highways. I had to battle this old auto-topian design this week in order to take my car to a mechanic, ironically. There is a train station about 500 meters behind the workshop, as the crow flies. I thought I would just drop my car off, walk to the train, hea…

I was in Perth recently and walked to a cafe to get some lunch, and in this particular area, there were no footpaths at all. It was an industrial/commercial area with factories everywhere, and everything was either carpark, with cars in it, grass strips, with cars parked on it, or road, with cars driving on it.

The city in the US I live in has this one road with one of the best bakeries I've ever been to and a few restaurants etc., and there is no sidewalk, bike lane or a shoulder on the road to speak of. Every time I go to the bakery I find it unbelievable.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#356

Post by jfk13 »

gvurrdon wrote: post #292
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…

This one is particularly bad for lane changing: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.7874467,-1.278506,17.57z?ent... Coming out of Oxford on the A4144 there are two lanes; the left lane is for taking the first two turns and the right lane for the remaining three. But, drivers unfamiliar with the layout who haven't seen the markings, or who fancy jumping the queue, will sometimes use the left hand lane to go straight ahead…

That Oxford example, at least, does have a "get in lane" sign[1] as you approach up the Woodstock Road, so any driver intending to go straight ahead on the A44 should know to use the right-hand lane to enter the roundabout.

But of course not everyone notices every sign (and some drivers just wilfully disobey them if they think it'll save a few seconds...)

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.787062,-1.2794264,3a,15y,317...

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#357

Post by hbrav »

pbmonster wrote: post #307
buro9 wrote: post #266

Swindon, UK would like to remind the World that recursive roundabouts are a thing too. https://i.imgur.com/4pMhdMl.gif

How is that a thing? Why not just have a two-lane roundabout with the third lane skipping the roundabout and going to the next exit directly?

The recursive design allows you to go the "wrong" way around the "big" roundabout.If you want to take the exit immediately to your right, the "single huge roundabout" design would require you to go almost all the way around to reach your exit. The recursive design allows you to take the third exit from the first two mini roundabout. Sorry if that's unclear, it's a bit tricky to explain in words.

Another advantage of the recursive design over a big roundabout is that it keeps traffic speeds slow, so collisions are much less deadly.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#358

Post by pnw »

davidw wrote: post #196
rcpt wrote: post #180

Ctrl+f "pedestrian" Only one result and it's not even about roundabouts. This is how American traffic engineering is done.

It seems that a lot of American traffic engineering is about increasing automobile throughput at the expense of all other factors. Safety, expense, even how economically productive the street is in terms of supporting businesses and housing.

I would argue in locations like Seattle the exact opposite now applies. Lots of “road diets”, bike lanes and other engineering that reduces automobile throughput.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#359

Post by ajb »

Moru wrote: post #218
ajb wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only need to know one fact to navigate it: the middle is not a roundabout, ignore the fact that it is round. Every driver in the UK is used to sequences of two or three roundabouts, they are part of the driving test. As long as you are not bamboozled by the pseudo roundabout in the middle, you just navigate it based on principles you already know.

As a right hand driver since 40 years I can't wrap my head around the combo roundabouts. I get terrified just looking at youtube drivers trying to explain how they work in England.

You do need to practice them. When I was learning my instructor devoted significant time to them. If you come from a country that doesn't have them, it's not irrational to worry that you aren't going to pick up how to manage them instantly. You need to make several decisions in succession, at the same time as doing several lane merges. But they're not rocket science. If you make a simple mistake, you just end up going the wrong way and have to turn round somewhere.

Holders of foreign driving licences should probably be required to do a course, including these at least, before being allowed to use their licence here.

Re: Safety benefits of roundabouts

#360

Post by guitarbill »

pbmonster wrote: post #327
kdmccormick wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Warning: Anecdata) There was a multi-lane roundabout near me with traffic signals and pedestrian crossing signals and all. It was an absolute nightmare to drive through, bike through, or cross on foot. Cars pressured one another to drive aggressively, pedestrians had to wait for walk signals, cars got confused and blew through the crosswalks by accident even when pedestrians had walk signals, bikes were an afterthou…

> As a pedestrian, I love it because I don't have to wait for a walk signal... I just cross, and entering traffic is obligated to yield to me. Not only entering traffic, also traffic leaving the roundabout. Which means this only works for low traffic intersections, since a single a busy pedestrian crossing can dead-lock the entire roundabout in all directions. My city has a slight modification of this: the pedestrian…

> But really, for busy roundabouts, pedestrian overpasses are the only sane choice. Ugly as hell to look at, but easily more comfortable than underpasses.

They're usually not accessible, or very expensive to do so.

Also, why should the infrastructure be vehicle-focussed like you describe? There's no reason other than people are so used to it.

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