Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We're excited about our new roundabout

wsdotblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 316 posts

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#231

Post by 123pie123 »

shiroiushi wrote: post #161
lmm wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely are. Even if they don't prevent all collisions, they turn T-bones into glancing hits and so save a lot of lives. The worst roundabout beats the best 4-way stop any day of the week. Sometimes there really are easy answers.

>Even if they don't prevent all collisions, they turn T-bones into glancing hits No, they don't, at least not in America. When you let American traffic engineers design a roundabout, you get this: https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8643875,-77.2755474,583m/

similar one here, but with added lights https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/53.479432/-2.281970

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#232

Post by knallfrosch »

Karellen wrote: post #189
jayyhu wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made a video that explains how to navigate the roundabout, and shows what it will actually look like (with yield markings)[1] [1]: https://youtu.be/07_m7HHiZRw

What the hell is that "dump truck with trailer" on a really long connector at 3:50? Is that a thing in some parts? How does that navigate almost any kind of roadway safely?

I guess that's exaggerated to proof that it works?

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#233

Post by dsego »

dmurray wrote: post #200
thepaulmcbride wrote: post #35

I live in the US now, but originally from Ireland. My least favourite part of US road infrastructure is the 4 way stop. They are just not good compared to a roundabout. Half the time the only way you can tell it’s an all way stop is by looking for the back of the stop signs on the perpendicular road. With a roundabout, you only have to look in one direction, and if it’s clear, you don’t even have to stop.

There's one four-way stop I pass regularly in Ireland [0]. I suspect there isn't enough room for a roundabout, and we also don't tend to construct roundabouts on hills (I'm not sure why they're any worse than other junctions there). There's a steep gradient going uphill from South to North. Normally it would be a two way stop, and I sometimes wonder why that wasn't chosen here. Likely because visibility is bad (trees…

A four-way stop would be confusing for me, those don't exist in my country as far as I'm aware. I was also thought that a stop or yield sign means I'm on the side road and the other road implicitly has priority.

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#234

Post by closewith »

tumidpandora wrote: post #223

Roundabouts are a nuisance, while they offer some merits, the sheer lack of education around how to navigate one makes for a very unpleasant experience in most cases.

Roundabouts are incredible, offering throughput and safety benefits.

> the sheer lack of education around how to navigate one makes for a very unpleasant experience in most cases.

If we're talking about the United States, then the problem is the lack of driver education in general.

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#235

Post by knallfrosch »

buffaloPizzaBoy wrote: post #57

Whats not mentioned in the article is that this particular intersection has a (15mph residential access road - top right) (25 mph farmland road - bottom) (50mph country highway - left and right) Previously, only drivers from the 15mph and 25mph roads had to stop! Visibility coming from the south would also be terrible to check for incoming highway drivers (left is blocked by foliage, right the road curves out of sigh…

I've watched the YouTube video where the previous intersection was shown in pure horror. They probably killed people daily there.

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#236

Post by dsego »

rented_mule wrote: post #76
MostlyStable wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you find one of the distressingly common places where they build a roundabout and put stop signs on some or all of the entrances.

Yep, every time I drive through this one, I curse the idea of 4-way-stop-roundabouts: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7609857,-121.1244208,3a,75y,... Too many people remain at the stop sign until the roundabout completely clears, so it becomes an excruciatingly slow 4-way stop. And there's not much traffic there. A few miles from that one, there's a high traffic roundabout that works very well. The heavily used right…

Wow, what's the point of a stop sign at a roundabout?

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#237

Post by niffydroid »

knallfrosch wrote: post #221

This is Germany's biggest roundabout, "B17 Kreisverkehr" Features two lanes and five exits, as well as a pass-through bridge for a highway. When you drive on the highway, you don't even see it. https://i.prcdn.co/img?regionKey=W3NBJc2RmiFQ3sgVAHxBDg%3D%3...

I feel like this is something that's pretty normal in the uk

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#238

Post by wholinator2 »

tumidpandora wrote: post #223

Roundabouts are a nuisance, while they offer some merits, the sheer lack of education around how to navigate one makes for a very unpleasant experience in most cases.

That's how we felt too until a couple years passed and we no longer noticed it. Now that people have learned how it works its much faster than the old stoplight stopsign combo

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#239

Post by _Microft »

tumidpandora wrote: post #223

Roundabouts are a nuisance, while they offer some merits, the sheer lack of education around how to navigate one makes for a very unpleasant experience in most cases.

How do they fail to use a roundabout properly? Any problem I can think of is not limited to roundabouts themselves.

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#240

Post by closewith »

bnralt wrote: post #95
thepaulmcbride wrote: post #35

I live in the US now, but originally from Ireland. My least favourite part of US road infrastructure is the 4 way stop. They are just not good compared to a roundabout. Half the time the only way you can tell it’s an all way stop is by looking for the back of the stop signs on the perpendicular road. With a roundabout, you only have to look in one direction, and if it’s clear, you don’t even have to stop.

Online I see this mentality that roundabouts are great no matter what and it seems really strange to me. It really depends on the design of the roundabout and the traffic conditions. Where I grew up there are a lot of roundabouts, but many of them are so dangerously designed I started actively avoiding them. It’s not that you can’t poorly design a four way stop, but it seems to be much less common, for whatever reaso…

> It’s not that you can’t poorly design a four way stop, but it seems to be much less common, for whatever reason.

All four way stops are badly designed. Roundabouts are not always the best options, but they're always better than four ways stops.

Post reply on HN