Comment by Freedom2
1 day ago
Talking to my American colleagues, they're often perplexed by roundabouts and don't really understand how they fundamentally work. They're also incredibly stubborn when it comes to convincing them that it helps with traffic flow immensely versus a 4 way stop sign.
When you’re walking the stop sign stops traffic for you so it’s a lot nicer. I’ve found that even with a marked crosswalk people ignore you if they’re not forced to stop.
And as a pedestrian, drivers going around a circle aren't necessarily going to see you until they're already exiting, even if the city didn't put something large in the center that entirely blocks their vision. Plus, you lose the ability to know which way a car is likely to go until it's already too late.
When I lived in Nashville, I spent a lot of time near a roundabout, and even after they redid it to be a bit better I still had to avoid it for my own safety. The light-controlled intersection next to it was much less of a problem.
The rule in Australia for roundabouts is that you give way to anyone already on a roundabout.
From an advanced driving course I got to do years ago (for free), I learnt that the pedestrian island counts as part of the roundabout, so a pedestrian crossing or on the island should be given way to finish crossing when entering the roundabout [1].
Doesn't always happen in reality.
There is also this idea in Australia that you always give right of way to cars entering on your right (left for US) which is not an actual rule; as in if you are waiting at the line you count as being on the roundabout.
Unfortunately, you will often see cars on the major road blast through a small roundabout with no regard to anyone waiting to enter from the lesser road, making entering the roundabout from that side a stop rather than an equal give way.
[1] Edited for clarity
I guess jaywalking stuff makes this harder? Because in the UK for example, roundabouts will often be surrounded by marked areas for pedestrians to cross, but they are not proper crossings. You don't have to wait or expect traffic to stop for you, you just walk across when it's clear.
I don't understand your comment.
* Jaywalking makes.. what harder?
* In the UK, roundabouts are marked with areas for pedestrians to cross but they are not crossings? What are they, then?
* You don't have to wait
* But also you can't expect traffic to stop for you
* What do you do if it does not become clear?
It's much better when there's no traffic. When there's traffic, it often doesn't stop for you when it exits the roundabout (even if it technically should) because everyone is busy going around the circle as fast as possible (and driving in a circle means they might not have been looking at where you crossed). Sometimes they move the pedestrian crossings way back to give people more of a chance to stop, but that still requires drivers to stop when they don't feel forced to.
I almost like them, but my commute long ago involved one that revealed a frustrating pathological case. Constant traffic flow in one direction can make an entrance entirely unusable. It makes the average trip more efficient, but the worst case becomes dramatically worse.
>Constant traffic flow in one direction can make an entrance entirely unusable.
Seems like a poorly designed roundabout then. You should just pull into the roundabout, right after the car already in the roundabout passes by. Something is wrong if one direction of traffic can block the flow from other directions.
> You should just pull into the roundabout, right after the car already in the roundabout passes by.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious: the issue is that there's another car right there, when traffic is heavy.
It's more a poor place for a roundabout. It was a very busy intersection in one direction, where the switch to roundabouts meant there was no longer a break in traffic. What it needed was a light with a sensor to let the very sporadic side traffic through (technically, a roundabout can have this, but the 3/4-way intersection that's always green except when someone needs it to not be is better), what we got was an endless stream of cars blocking the way for a lot of the day. If you pull in after the car already in the roundabout passes by, you get hit by the next one.
3 replies →