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The strange magic of Swindon’s seven-in-one roundabout

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Re: The strange magic of Swindon’s seven-in-one roundabout

#11

Post by huhtenberg »

nimbix wrote: post #8

Do most people just simply ignore the outer roundabouts? Otherwise I don't know how to explain this picture: https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wired_see-h... There's a group of cars on the very right simply driving through the roundabout instead of around the center dot; and the two red cars on the left side of the image also couldn't have ended up where they are without ignoring the roundabout right b…

That's a staged photo. They "paraded" 60 vintage cars to celebrate the town's anniversary. Mentioned closer to the end of the video.

Re: The strange magic of Swindon’s seven-in-one roundabout

#12

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

I used to live close enough to this to drive over it occasionally.

When it's busy traffic is literally coming at you from three directions, the geometry isn't obvious or intuitive, and none of the usual rules apply.

It always had glass from collisions on it.

Re: The strange magic of Swindon’s seven-in-one roundabout

#13

Post by andybak »

Jetroid wrote: post #7
blowski wrote: post #2

Interesting topic but the article itself has no detail, just lots of advertising.

That, and the video had that very insulting 'brexit' joke. Poor taste.

Are we insulted at the mere mention of Brexit by non-Brits now? How bizarre.

(Actually - that gives me hope. If the shame gets too much, we as a nation might do the most British thing and quietly pretend it never happened)

Re: The strange magic of Swindon’s seven-in-one roundabout

#14

Post by moomin »

andybak wrote: post #13
Jetroid wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, and the video had that very insulting 'brexit' joke. Poor taste.

Are we insulted at the mere mention of Brexit by non-Brits now? How bizarre. (Actually - that gives me hope. If the shame gets too much, we as a nation might do the most British thing and quietly pretend it never happened)

Yep, sooner we get to the point that the average person would punch you in the face than admit to supporting Brexit the better.

More generally, if we want Britain to stop being a laughing stock, we need to stop acting like one.

Re: The strange magic of Swindon’s seven-in-one roundabout

#15

Post by masklinn »

mabbo wrote: post #6

Hemel Hempstead, North of London, has an even better one. https://goo.gl/maps/aAq7pzA45eR2 It's actually 6 roundabouts forming a seventh (the Swindon one is only five forming a sixth) and it's also over a waterway. As the taxi drove us through that madness, my boss turned to me and said "okay, you were right, it's best we didn't rent a car and try to drive to ourselves".

The Plough is much simpler to handle imo, because you're only directly dealing with one roundabout at a time, the "meta-roundabout" is more incidental rather than the mess of Swindon.

Re: The strange magic of Swindon’s seven-in-one roundabout

#16

Post by radiorental »

mabbo wrote: post #6

Hemel Hempstead, North of London, has an even better one. https://goo.gl/maps/aAq7pzA45eR2 It's actually 6 roundabouts forming a seventh (the Swindon one is only five forming a sixth) and it's also over a waterway. As the taxi drove us through that madness, my boss turned to me and said "okay, you were right, it's best we didn't rent a car and try to drive to ourselves".

I used to work in Hemel, I never saw an accident. Affectionately known as the 'magic roundabout' (after the children's show)

It worked surprising well, if a little 'when all you've got is circles, everything looks like a roundabout' solution.

https://goo.gl/maps/QZJzPG7wDE22

Re: The strange magic of Swindon’s seven-in-one roundabout

#17

Post by radiorental »

masklinn wrote: post #15
mabbo wrote: post #6

Hemel Hempstead, North of London, has an even better one. https://goo.gl/maps/aAq7pzA45eR2 It's actually 6 roundabouts forming a seventh (the Swindon one is only five forming a sixth) and it's also over a waterway. As the taxi drove us through that madness, my boss turned to me and said "okay, you were right, it's best we didn't rent a car and try to drive to ourselves".

The Plough is much simpler to handle imo, because you're only directly dealing with one roundabout at a time, the "meta-roundabout" is more incidental rather than the mess of Swindon.

Not quite strictly true. You can traverse the inner roundabout without having go full circle around each of the satellites.

Re: The strange magic of Swindon’s seven-in-one roundabout

#18

Post by laumars »

mabbo wrote: post #6

Hemel Hempstead, North of London, has an even better one. https://goo.gl/maps/aAq7pzA45eR2 It's actually 6 roundabouts forming a seventh (the Swindon one is only five forming a sixth) and it's also over a waterway. As the taxi drove us through that madness, my boss turned to me and said "okay, you were right, it's best we didn't rent a car and try to drive to ourselves".

It's not the number of roundabouts that makes Swindon hard, it's the number of lanes per junction and the proximity of the spot islands to each other.

For reference, Colchester also has a "magic roundabout" with the same structure of Hemel's but Swindon's is easily the worst of the 3 because the whole thing operates as one junction due to how tightly packed the roundabouts are. Whereas Hemel and Colchester can be treated as 6 and 5 (respectively) separate junctions circling an island. That makes a huge difference when driving around these kinds of roundabouts.

Re: The strange magic of Swindon’s seven-in-one roundabout

#19

Post by Jetroid »

andybak wrote: post #13
Jetroid wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, and the video had that very insulting 'brexit' joke. Poor taste.

Are we insulted at the mere mention of Brexit by non-Brits now? How bizarre. (Actually - that gives me hope. If the shame gets too much, we as a nation might do the most British thing and quietly pretend it never happened)

It's more that they're shoehorning such a divisive political event into an otherwise completely unrelated article that insults me.

The connection is tenuous - brexit only being mentioned because it happened in Britain.

It just gave me the distasteful feeling that brexit was the only part of british culture - other than our penchant for roundabouts - that this commentator knew about. Part of british culture that half of the country probably still feels burned by.

Re: The strange magic of Swindon’s seven-in-one roundabout

#20

Post by mojuba »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #12

I used to live close enough to this to drive over it occasionally. When it's busy traffic is literally coming at you from three directions, the geometry isn't obvious or intuitive, and none of the usual rules apply. It always had glass from collisions on it.

Roundabouts have an extra mental tax on drivers, something that's often disregarded in this kind of debates. You should be more alert, more aware of your surroundings, decisions are tougher to make (move? or not yet?). This 7-in-1 roundabout seems to be taking that to the extreme. I can imagine how uncomfortable and challenging it must be to cross it, especially for drivers who are not familiar with it.

Now compare that to regulated intersections, which come at a price of potentially longer delays of course, but in return have much lower mental tax on drivers.

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