On 10/6/2015 9:56 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 9:05:25 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 6 Oct 2015 11:45:00 +0100, Ian Jackson
wrote:

In message ,
writes
On Mon, 5 Oct 2015 22:25:33 -0600, Tony Hwang wrote:

When I was visiting some friends in Sandy Eggo, they took me down to
Tijuana where they have these traffic circles. It was a fun time to sit
and watch the cars on the merry-go-round. ;-)

You need roundabouts like the Magic Rpundabout in Hemel Hemptsead!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVeAhmvNFIU

The virtue of having several mini-roundabouts around the periphery of a
large roundabout is that it breaks up the traffic, and also slows it
down.

Bearing in mind that in the UK, you have to give way ("yield") to
traffic to your the right (already on a roundabout), this gives those
entering junctions a fairly even chance of joining the traffic flow. The
disadvantage of large roundabouts is that traffic already the roundabout
can travel at a considerable speed, or get bunched up (or both). This
makes it difficult for anyone trying to enter the traffic flow.

We have one on the other side of freeway. another subdivision. When I go
there, i notice people living in the surrounding neighborhood don't even
know how to use it.

They put in some of them not far from my home. I absolutely hate them.
I'll drive a couple miles further or drive thru alleys just to avoid the
damn things. I think they are completely assinine. About 20 families
lost their homes and a dozen businesses were shoved out, so that the
city could rip down all those buildings to build a TRIPLE roundabout. It
used to be a simple stop light, where it took a minute sitting at the
light. Now it takes 5 minutes to manuver around that goddamn thing, and
uses 3 times as much gas. The city spent millions of dollars to build
that moronic thing so they could save a couple hundred dollars of
electricity to power the stop light.

The whole idea of roundabouts is to try to prevent traffic having to
stop. Could it be that many drivers in your benighted country haven't
yet learned how to use them properly? Maybe you don't have the necessary
skills and discipline to know when to keep going (if you can), and when
to give way (if you can't)?

I have not found one person in that city that wanted it before they
built it, and not one person that likes it now. But their idiot
politicians built it anyway!

You literally have to drive about 3 or 4 blocks past the original stop
light, then drive back those 3 or 4 blocks to turn onto that cross road.

One guy who lives there said "they hired all the town's drunks, got them
very drunk, and let them design it while they were intoxicated".

I fully agree!

I have to admit that roundabouts do have their limitations.

If traffic is too heavy, they can clog up, and things are then worse
than having traffic lights. The simplistic fix is to install lights,
giving you the best/worst of both worlds.

Unfortunately, in the UK, local authority traffic planners often seem
pretty dim (I suspect many don't/can't drive). They often don't seem to
realise that traffic lights may not really be necessary on some of the
roundabouts where they have decided to install them. And even if they
are necessary at peak traffic times, they can actually be switched off
when their use is not warranted. OK, there are some part-time lights,
but they are surprisingly rare.

However, in the UK, roundabouts are generally considered to be 'a good
thing'. We pour scorn on those that have so far failed to realise their
obvious advantages. I would suggest you have a quick look at the British
Highway Code, and you'll see how to use them. Of course, as we drive on
the correct side of the road over here, where necessary you'll have to
swap left for right, and vice versa. Start at Section 4 (page 81, para
184).
http://bit.ly/1Oi1T4t






They work fine until traffic overloads them, then it is just a
cluster****

The main excuse I hear in the US that makes any sense at all is they
are a traffic calming device that slows people down. That is not
really a popular idea unless it is in front of your house.

DC is full of them but the typical bumper to bumper traffic forced
them to install lights on them and then you have that "worst of both
worlds". They tunneled under the worst of them.

Yes the rules are the same and everyone understands the car in the
circle has the right of way but when the circle is full because the
road up stream of you is full, there is no getting on the circle. Than
that road backs up and pretty soon you have the classic grid lock
where nobody is moving..

Regarding who has the right-of-way, here in NJ, I thought the rule was
what you stated, that the car in the circle has it. But I recently lost
that debate. Turns out under NJ law there is no standard as to which
car has the ROW, and it's based on what is locally accepted at each
circle based on traffic flow, etc. I know that sounds crazy and IDK
how you could resolve who is at fault, etc, but that's what it is here.


It's the same as in the UK except here in US it is traffic on your left
which is already in the round-about as you enter.

I dislike them too, maybe because we have so few of them and are not
used to the routine.

Visitor from UK was ****ed that we did not have them. He missed a turn
and there was no round-about to help him out.