Acquiunk wrote:People often try to cut you off when you are attempting to enter one and on several occasions this has resulted in serious accidents (not me). There used to be one on Rt 1 in New Hampshire on the way to Maine years ago that was a nightmare.
That's another problem! Here in MA the people ON the rotary have the right of way. In most other places the people entering have the right of way. Makes for interesting times when you have out-of state drivers!
We have one in Houston. As it's been some years since I've been there, I don't recall how many exits it has.
In the city in which I grew up there was one, but they made a conventional intersection out of it many years ago. It had 4 exits.
There's one still in Orange, TX (3 exits).
When I was in Alexandria, LA after Christmas, they still have theirs (5 exits). I found it kind of harrowing.
Interesting comments,
In regards to the 5 exit circle, another myth has been cleared up, thank-you.
Our lane control system is the same fishin', I'd never thought of the alternate.
I think a circle/rotary that includes both a highway and a side road would be difficult to deal with... I've never seen that. I have seen a lot of these (in Scotland and Spain) for off-ramps.
It is important for drivers to be fair to each other. Sounds like these MA drivers are not. Instead of basing entry on right-of-way first, it should be based on sharing the road. Timid drivers do make things difficult though.
So I have mixed experience. Where they are happening locally in my new area, I think they have no clue from traffic, me being from LA, near a state highway as the key road through Venice, California. Lincoln Blvd., the way to the airport, the key intersections being F's , not good. My friend who lives in the Marina (Oxford) triangle (which is actually part of Venice, known as Marina for real estate reasons) has one hell of a slog to get out of her ordinary block onto the boulevard to get onto Lincoln.
None of that will interest you except as data that I lived around a thicket.
In Humboldt, they whine, but they have no idea.
Still, my partner and I have been involved in a redesign of a CA highway, along with an engineering firm and caltrans, and we did the general concept, including medians and bulbouts, and so on. So I am very interested in pros and cons on circles. I am also very interested re crosswalks or not, a tangent to this immediate question.
Circles locally have been used as slowers, and they are used in, locally and relatively (to me) non frenetic areas in the first place. Listen, I love Rome, Arcata isn't Rome.
I also have a life long gap in apprehension, though I haven't had a ticket in three decades, I am not the most perceiving person on the road and make up for it in attention. The idea of a double circle throws me. I'd be interested in how they work or don't.
They are very common in Europe, especially in the UK and France, since a couple of years in Germany as well (again).
They (we, I) think, it's really an easy, cheap and intelligent solution for regulating the traffic.
The superior safety record of modern roundabouts is well-known in Western Europe and in most British-influenced countries around the globe.
Especially in housing areas, people don't get annoyed anymore by the noise of starting and breaking cars:
I meant by all that, that the traffic in my new area is light, no matter what the locals say. Still, it needs to flow well.
Triffic circles, at least where I come from are double laned and follow four simple rules.
If you are exiting two lanes or more, enter and remain in center lane till exit.
Cars in the right (outside) lane must yeild to cars on the left (inside) lane.
Incoming cars yeild to vehicles already in the circle.
Use your damn signal light.
Sagamore bridge rotary is scheduled to go the way fo the elevated central artery.
There's a roaty by the entrance to Otis Airforce Base... there was an eatery just by it. And for several years my brother had a cartoon character named after that eatery. Otis Rotary Diner.
I've never pranged my car on the Rt. 2 Concord rotary... was through it twice yesterday...
Yep, we've got roundabouts.
A couple of years ago here, some f**ked in the head moron, decided that people should use their turn signals when they were going straight. Thank god everybody ignored it.
theyve just discovered this road design technology in Maryland. As we speak, there are a bunch of new rotaries being built on scenic routes (like the route along the Chesapeake bay) the highway(rt 213) goes throughj some cute little towns and they didnt want to put bypasses so , instead they built rotaries for turning and traffic calming.
The only problem is that the designs are so quaint that its possible to just ignore the entire rotary's purpose and drive straight through if you are going strait and traffics so calm that noone bothers to shoot the wheels of the offenders out.
Not a big fan
Aside from Mass., I've seen one in NY (near the Hamptons, in Eastern Long Island) and one in Central-Southern New Jersey (I can't recall the exact town. Morris Plains?). They don't seem to exist in the Carolinas, Virginia or Georgia, but it's been a while since I drove in any of those states, so things may have changed.
The town of swindon, england has a roundabout that is called "the magic roundabout" It's a real groove and deserves being negotiated while listening to something like Thunder Road or Crosstown Traffic at hi volume. Not for the faint hearted during the rush hour
http://www.swindonweb.com/life/lifemagi0.htm
Quote:History of Roundabouts
It all began around 1905...
Traffic circles have been part of the transportation system in the United States since 1905, when the Columbus Circle designed by William Phelps Eno opened in New York City. Subsequently, many large circles or rotaries were built in the United States. The prevailing designs enabled high-speed merging and weaving of vehicles. Priority was given to entering vehicles, facilitating high-speed entries. High crash experience and congestion in the circles led to rotaries falling out of favor in America after the mid-1950's. Internationally, the experience with traffic circles was equally negative, with many countries experiencing circles that locked up as traffic volumes increased.
Changes in the United Kingdom created the modern roundabout...
The modern roundabout was developed in the United Kingdom to rectify problems associated with these traffic circles. In 1966, the United Kingdom adopted a mandatory "give-way" rule at all circular intersections, which required entering traffic to give way, or yield, to circulating traffic. This rule prevented circular intersections from locking up, by not allowing vehicles to enter the intersection until there were sufficient gaps in circulating traffic. In addition, smaller circular intersections were proposed that required adequate horizontal curvature of vehicle paths to achieve slower entry and circulating speeds.
Modern roundabouts have improved traffic safety and traffic operations over older circles...
These changes improved the safety characteristics of the circular intersections by reducing the number and particularly the severity of collisions. Thus, the resultant modern roundabout is significantly different from the older traffic circle both in how it operates and in how it is designed. The modern roundabout represents a substantial improvement, in terms of operations and safety, when compared with older rotaries and traffic circles. Therefore, many countries have adopted them as a common intersection form and some have developed extensive design guides and methods to evaluate the operational performance of modern roundabouts.
Maryland has been a roundabout leader in the United States...
Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) began to consider roundabouts as an intersection control in the late 1980's. The SHA became particularly interested because of the international experience regarding the safety of roundabouts. After several years conducting research and developing roundabout guidelines and site selection procedures, SHA built their first roundabout in 1993. This roundabout, at the intersection of MD 94 and MD 144 in Lisbon, Howard County, was built primarily to reduce accidents. Prior to conversion to a roundabout, the intersection was listed as a high accident intersection, with an average of eight police reported accidents per year. The intersection has averaged a total of 2 police reported accidents/year since the roundabout was installed. In 2000, there was 1 police-reported accident at this intersection.
SOURCE
Very interesting is this
MAGIC ROUNDABOUT in Swindon, UK.
And
HERE! is a website about those mini-roundabouts, Ceili mentioned earlier. (Not only in Britain, you find them here in Germany as well [four in my small village].)
Omigosh, that Swindon magic circle.... eeeeeeeek. So you come in, then go anti-clockwise and get off at your favorite clockwise circle?
That might really screw us up, since when Mr. P is driving in the UK and we come to a traffic circle, my mantra is "Stay to the left, honey, stay to the left. LEFT, I said, LEFT!!!!"
(Make note, avoid Swindon.)
I found that just going around a circle a time or two to get my bearings was helpful.
Piffka wrote:"Stay to the left, honey, stay to the left. LEFT, I said, LEFT!!!!"
I wonder, how you would have called him in Swindon
We are also in North America.
We are full of traffic circles (glorietas).
You can't pass driving school if you don't go through a traffic circle.
101 rule for traffic circles here: outgoing vehicles have preference over incoming vehicles.
In the past few years some of the circles have got red lights to prevent chaos.
