Debate Roundabouts: Efficiency in Action or Vortex of Death

latheboy said:

Everywhere else the Roundabouts are great
There seems to be a lot of traffic lights going up around roundabouts lately, they limit the traffic into the roundabout... WTF .. I don't think it's a problem with the design of the roundabout, more the amount of traffic using it in peak times.

Get with the future peeps and embrace your new roundabout overloads.
they are good for drift practice too

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So.... roundabouts are so great and amazing that they have to limit the traffic during peak times just like on normal roads that have stop lights? I'm shocked... shocked!

There is only one good roundabout near me.

And that's because they built an extra lane outside of the roundabout for traffic making a 90 degree right turn.

That way the only cars going into the circle are going straight through or making a left.

Also the radius is nice and big.

Tiny ones with a ton of traffic can suck off.

Lots of them here in Massachusetts and they are great and incredibly efficient for intersections where most everyone coming from one side would be, effectively, turning left. The problem, as others have noted, is that there are people who don't understand how they work:

1) People who are completely terrified of roundabouts and just sit waiting until there is no sign of any traffic at all before they enter.
2) People who never leave the right hand lane or hug the outer part of the circle thus preventing people from other points from entering.

The end result is that you will often get a significant backlog of cars waiting at the entrance until the current Timid Timmy gets his shit together, but then the whole column will clear out in fairly short order as everyone else more deftly navigates the things.

As a Euro I didn't know wtf to do at a 4 way stop, why not just put two on the side road? Better yet, how about a yield sign so you don't need to come to a complete stop whenever there is a cop behind you.

I don't think anyone in Europe treats a stop sign differently from a yield sign, completely interchangable as far as we are concerned. I've never once heard of someone getting ticketed for failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign in Europe.

I have to drive up to North NJ (Ledgewood) every now and then for work (from the Philly area). Roundabouts on 202 and 46 that have been there for ages were recently replaced with more standard intersections....

I'm too lazy to look up the additional info surrounding the change but there's my anecdotal contribution. NJ seems to be moving away from them?

NJ has never struck me as particularly well designed or organized. I mean abandoning the PATH tunnel was epic-level dumb

Lanx said:

How do you guys approach 4 way stops then???

having driven on the east coast and now driving in bum fuck Kansas, white ppl really suck at 4 way stops.

Literally, you can have a conversation with the opposite guy, the way these dumb fucks are so skiddish going forward.

I come to a complete stop, and literally go, everyone is too slow or dumb to move forward. Of course if i see Jim Billy Bob with his banged up truck, i'll wait too he goes past the intersection cuz he's usually a fucking retard.

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You are right that sometimes people are dumb at 4 way stops. How to approach 4 way stops?
1. Come to a complete stop
2. Whoever stops first goes first
3. when in doubt, the car on the right has right of way
Simple, civilized, only delays you for a matter of seconds. People are idiots but I'd rather the idiots stopped briefly so if we hit each other the damage will be less. (I'm sure someone will parachute in with a graph "proving" that low speed collisions are actually more dangerous in response to that statement)

White people are bad at driving was a good one, thanks for bringing a smile to my day

wtf is a roundabout...i call them...Rotaries... the one above is huge, like 200 yards across...

like Que said, lots in my area- but they are actually REMOVING them in areas for enhanced flows/stop lights

however The Roundabout above condon circle..which officially is the name on the circle,, EVERYONE older than 40 calls goodwin circle due to there used to be a awesome restaurant
where that equitable bank is now called..goodwin's. they have updated this circle to 2 lanes outside lane for entering/exiting inside for going around.
Funny weird thing with this rotary, the 2 northerly exits, you can take either one and end up in the same spot. route 1 -northmost one- has exits for route 95 and route 1- road ends going onto route 1 north.
nw one, crosses route 1 and you can turn onto either route 1 north or south..or if you continue straight..you end up going past exits onto route 95.

Hateyou said:

New Jersey has some fucking horrible road standards. The random jug handles (turn right and loop around to turn left) suck because they aren’t very consistent. If you don’t know the area you’re almost always going to end up in the wrong lane to turn left at some point.

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I first encountered a jug-handle like that near Hanscom AFB and they really are a great solution to a situation where a significant percentage of the oncoming traffic wants to turn left and you don't want to dedicate eons to left-turn cheater lights. I do agree that they should be used in a much more consistent fashion if they are used at all.

Google Maps and other navigation aids don't seem to have a solid grasp on how to instruct a person who is heading into a 'traffic circle'. I keep wondering what the heck they are counting sometimes when they say 'take the 3rd exit' as no reasonable methodology of counting would conclude that the exit the visual display is indicating is "third".