Little or no roundabouts in the U.S?

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none in my immediate area (small village)

but they are starting to become more common in other areas.

I prefer them to 4 way stops or traffic lights.
 
Having grown up in Canberra Australia, which is the roundabout capital of the world, the 4 way stop is infinitely more civilised...get there first, and it's your turn.

The roundabout can be manipulated to give preferential flow to posh rather than feeder suburbs...we had one intersection where a posh suburb had to give right of way to 4 feeder suburbs onto one of the main roads. Usually 4 cars waiting for a gap.

By installing a "fair" roundabout, they ended up with two streams of traffic banked a half mile back, and the posh suburb cars would sail around, one now, one in 10 seconds, another in 12...always moving, and the feeders always blocked.

IF you make the roundabout large (like Bathurst has recently done with their new arrangements, they ARE fair...but if you take a typical suburban situation, the planners can and will use them to suit their more affluent subdivisions.
 
Lots in my neck of the woods. Shannow makes a good point. I know of a couple of roundabouts that would have been better served by lights or stop signs. Too much traffic. Most here are around school zones so they do work keeping speeds down but clog up the streets when schools open and close.
 
We didn't have have many, now they are everywhere. I grew up on one of the biggest in the country, so learnt how to be aggressive on them at an early age. One in another suburb I lived in for years has gone, they blocked off the 5th road and put in a set of lights. I go through 2 everyday to get to work, one each end of the bridge.

People moan about indicating on roundabouts, but I don't see the problem. I ride a motorcycle, I don't look at indicators, I look at the driver and car - I know where they are going even if their indicator says they are going somewhere else.
 
Glad there aren't many traffic circles in the U.S. Stop signs work better IMO.

A ton of traffic circles here and accidents all over the place, because people cannot comprehend a concept as basic as right of way. They just drive right into it and some poor soul at the traffic circle ends up paying the price. Then of course, you have the "drifters".
 
The towns around here seem to drool over the idea of using them....I guess it brings a Euro flavor to the area.Frankly,I saw no issues with the 4 way stops.These brick lined behemoths are real fun in the winter when they haven't been plowed.
 
Few enough so that drivers don't know how to navigate them.

Just yesterday, as I reached the entrance to one and stopped waiting to enter, a driver already in the roundabout then stopped and yielded to me.

As for four-way stops being more civilised...some are completely ignorant, or just disregard the "first" rule, or "ties go the driver on the right" rule.

I've seen extreme cases where drivers who stop 25 ft behind the intersection think that because they've slowed down and stopped "first", they're entitled to proceed ahead of all others who have presented themselves AT the intersection and have stopped.

Then there are two who "ride the coattails" of the driver on front of them, stop together in tandem, and consider that good enough to obey the sign...
 
The only place I came across with roundabouts in Texas was Waco. I may be way out of date by now.
In the UK we have a problem ith European drivers not understanding the "Yield to the right" rule, basically whoever is already on the roundabout has right of way. Don't get confused, we drive on the left here!.
Properly designed and used, roundabouts are a great help in easing traffic flow, but if you are used to four way stop junctions then I see why it can cause confusion.

Claud.
 
My community just installed like 6 of them on a road that shouldn't have them. Small intersecting roads with very light traffic. So now instead of just a straight shot at 45-50mph, you now have to slow down to 15 mph every mile to negotiate the circle, then waste gas speeding up to 50, only to slow back down to 15mph again, times 6. It was super annoying to find that they ruined this road in this manner. Idiots.

Circles are good for high volume intersections. Not so much for intersections that might see a car coming every 15 minutes from one direction.
 
When I was younger, say 30-35 years ago, there was a campaign to remove them.

Find Rt. 23 on a New Jersey map and it was nothing but circles as it wend it way into the hills.
Increasing development brought traffic and the lazy circles had to go.
 
I live near Gettysburg and they've had one for the longest time. Obviously it's a major tourist spot so traffic backs up.

But traffic is always flowing and not too many accidents occur. Some people don't realize that when they see an opening they need to take it. It should be like a zipper in a way.

I tend to agree with the poster about driver's don't have the concept of right away. I turn left on my development and I don't have a stop sign but the other lane does. They will still try to go (amazing how they wait til the second before I start turning to go) even though they have a stop sign and I don't it's like they can't comprehend that it's okay for me to have the right of way even while turning left. Other people just don't know how to yielf when going on a highway, and it doesn't matter how much traffic there is, they are forcing their way in there and not... yielding...
 
I know of a few. Only one that gives me grief is one that has 2 lanes on it. Originally the outer lane was to simply go from one entrance to the immediate exit. Problem was... nobody can read much less follow directions. But I can't fully blame them. The circle is like 50 feet across. Meaning, if you were in the inside lane and then wanted to move to the outer lane for an exit, you had a couple of yards to do it in. Today it's something of a free for all.

The other ones seem to work ok. Yeah during heavy traffic it can get monopolized; but the rest of the time it seems to serve its purpose.
 
Originally Posted By: PimTac
If you think roundabouts are confusing, try a diverging diamond freeway interchange. This one is planned in my area.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5gLxlXamhgY


That's nutz...visitors who aren't familiar will mess it up every time.

Sydney, heading north over the bridge, they have these computer simulated "efficient" set-ups, and then change them between morning and afternoon.

Throw in a bumpkin...and chaos ensues.

The commuters know the drill...the frequency I drive down there can mean a three lane difference depending on time of day.
 
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