Debate Roundabouts: Efficiency in Action or Vortex of Death

Roundabouts are a plague on civilization and should be sent back to Africa.

10 roundabouts in 4 miles...

BrutulTM said:

I guess you're going to have to explain what's so horrible about them. I love them.

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It's probably just how much they fuck up traffic in certain population densities. I'm sure they're fine in some places, but in tighter inner urban areas they become savage. It's also compounded for me when I approach them with lights and sirens. The other roads, feeding the other inlets to the roundabouts, are not aware of the situation and thus keep feeding themselves into the meat grinder and clogging up the entire approach to the thing. The problem here is that there is no relief. It just keeps going. At a light, even if shit is fucked up, I can always just wait for the green. The green is inevitable and it will clear the way for me eventually. Roundabouts clear themselves for you, but they require every monkey involved to become self-aware and that takes forever. The lights tell the monkeys to stop and go, the roundabouts just confound them.

Don't even get me started on optional on/off ramps. The dude who invented those is in the 9th circle of hell.

They just added two back to back in the middle of a 4 lane road by the highway I've been using. Relatively small town and it's one block from the interstate, not in an urban type area. It's horrible. You're expected to make a lane change to get onto the interstate while everyone else is making an opposite change to make a left turn in the roundabout. They wound up changing it 3 times now in the first 6 months and I notied in the paper while I was waiting at the Dr. there the other day they are thinking about removing them entirely. Roundabouts might be alright but why put 2 back to back in the busiest part of town where they get a ton of traffic coming off the interstate as they enter an area including truck stops and they they have to change lanes. Boggles the mind.

Bad enough I stay on the interstate another 15 miiles and go to the next town and come to the hospital via a surface road from the other direction.

BrutulTM said:

All I know is when I've been driving around the roundabout part of town and then leave it and I'm sitting at a red light it seems like I've gone back in time.

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I envy you more than you know.

Lanx said:

i'll be honest, i didn't know the rightmost lane could go either right or straight, i thought it could only go right (first exist).

HOWEVER, i can distinctly remember never seeing the ability to go right or stright in that lane, and i looked at google maps, and MY roundabout in KS shows that you can ONLY go right, in the right lane

so of course, i'm gonna ignore that video now.

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Welcome to the 7th Circle of Hell.

Lanx said:

i'll be honest, i didn't know the rightmost lane could go either right or straight, i thought it could only go right (first exist).

HOWEVER, i can distinctly remember never seeing the ability to go right or stright in that lane, and i looked at google maps, and MY roundabout in KS shows that you can ONLY go right, in the right lane

so of course, i'm gonna ignore that video now.

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Then your roundabout is fucked up.

BrutulTM said:

I guess you're going to have to explain what's so horrible about them. I love them.

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Is this a trick question?

In a 4 way stop everyone is equal, and civilized behavior is required. Everyone stops briefly and takes their turn.

In a roundabout whichever motherfucker guns it and gets into the roundabout first has right of way and doesnt have to wait his turn in line. Every interaction between cars is unequal and the more aggressive driver benefits.

It takes about 5 seconds to look at that system and say "oh, thats a friggin terrible idea that should never be implemented".

My problem with roundabouts is that they are rare enough that most people have no idea wtf to do with them and it feels like a free-for-all.