In the early 1980s I didn't realize that I was on the cutting edge of logistics - inadvertently. I drove a garbage truck for a company in a small Midwest city. I could only make right-hand turns. It wasn't due to the brilliance of management. It was just the opposite. Poor business decisions led to cutbacks in vehicle upkeep and eventually bankruptcy. My truck, besides having poor brakes, bald tires, oil leaks, etc., had a broken front suspension. My truck could not make left turns on anything less than 4 lane roads.

Bell Telephone had this safety policy many years ago.

Eventually, this country will jump on the 'new technology' called the 'traffic circle' or 'roundabout'. Of course, then you'd actually have to train the people how to use them.

As a Brit, my town has a huge number of roundabouts. They're a *massive* pain in the arse. I much prefer intersections when I'm driving in the US.

As a fellow Brit now living in the US, I love them. They're far more cost effective than having traffic idling at traffic lights or waiting to make a left turn. Trouble is, most circles /roundabouts in this country aren't built large enough to slow down traffic, so it becomes a race to see who can get through them the quickest.

It's not about the size of the roundabout that slows down traffic, it's the angle of the entry curve. The design elements are described here (in case you're interested): https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pu...

I think roundabouts are great for light traffic, but when one "feed" dominates the rest, it can become unworkable.

Which of course they so often do. Roundabouts are fine until they're supporting huge volumes of traffic over 5 lanes, then they become a PITA.

You do realise roundabouts are intersections, right? Roundabouts have also been proven to significantly reduce not only the frequency of crashes, but the severity of crashes. They also reduce delay pretty significantly, especially in areas where there isn't constant traffic. This is because you yield on entry rather than coming to a complete stop like at a stop sign or waiting for a traffic signal to turn green.

We have a couple of roundabouts here in No. CA., USA and they are a PITA, especially when the three schools on the main thoroughfare are beginning or ending their day. At those times, if you are on the cross street, you do have to stop and wait, as the cars taking their kids to or from school are usually bumper to bumper and moving fast...no chance in h*** of getting into the roundabout.

It seems to be a culture thing. I have never heard any driver in the NL complain about them. There are also not all that much large ones here. Most of them are used for single-lane. They are well understood in terms of throughput. All of the bigger crossings still have traffic lights. I have not been on many of the big ones, but they definitely feel like "rule of jungle law" to me. There is a big one in Paris near the soccer stadium. It is high-paced madness. The single-lane ones on the other hand promote a sense of tranquillity. As with everything it is a matter of knowing strengths and weaknesses, and not going blindly with either. I also have never seen a roundabout in the (centre) of Amsterdam. Traffic is just too intense there and it would get in the way of all the trams. So, in the Netherlands there is hardly anyone who objects to them because they seem to be properly deployed.

In Holland these roundabouts are everywhere. We call them rotonde. If there is no rotonde there are traffic lights and if there are neither then the street is probably not busy enough to warrant concern. All in all this policy is really odd but I guess it can work out if it's flexible.

Just like the Metric road sign , speed debacle?
Cities make more cash sending out their bounty hunters to fine and terrorize their citizens at traffic junctions.

Many cities have spent lots of money to turn intersections into roundabouts. And many of them have almost IMMEDIATELY regretted it. Los are scrambling to come up with the money to get rid of them.

What problems occured because of roundabouts?

They can become huge traffic bottlenecks.

Little roundabouts slow down the neighborhood traffic more than guide it smoothly. Communities like to control speeders with them.

Big roundabouts can be a nightmare, as it is not so easy to get in and out. Rush hour in a roundabout is often brutal.

Being from Massachusetts, the Mecca of Rotaries, the strategy is simple:

The LAW says that the vehicle in the rotary has the right of way,

However, the LAW OF THE JUNGLE states that the bigger the vehicle and the more toxic the payload, the more right of way it has. A tanker truck full of propane has the right of way over a Prius anywhere at anytime.

Negotiating a rotary is best done by imagining you are the lead battle tank in a column commanded by George S. Patton. Audacity wins the day.

Happy motoring!

Curly is correct,I have driven on some of the larger roundabouts in the world and there has been Zero incidents as the drivers followed the rules.
The moronic 4 way stops here are idiotic.Main roads should have right of way and side roads should YIELD.
It is not surprising to see why the country is in the decline due to a guaranteed voting block of democrats that is being protected from natural selection by a benevolent government that is simply taking care of its lemmings and sheeple.

A little hint - you'll catch more flies with honey. Calling people sheeple and lemmings is not a way to persuade them, unless you are trying to persuade them that you are unpleasant. Plus, you'll avoid saying things that like "moronic stops are idiotic." I think anything that is "moronic" is probably idiotic. That's like saying "its nice to be kind."

In some places, there is no break in traffic, ever. So if the rule is that side roads always yield, yielding forever, the people on the side roads will be there till 3:30 AM.

If the roundabout is clear that gives you right of way and YOU don't need to stop if the roundabout is correctly run.

The block of left wingers in the US is far weaker than the block of left wingers in the vast majority of countries around the globe.

I live near a big roundabout in Long Beach, CA and I know for a fact it terrifies people.

Then they need to be educated. How hard is this?

Yes, forced social engineering is called for.

Nah, nothing so insidious, I think it's commonly known as a 'drivers test'. Confusing and terrifying, isn't it?

Where do you live? The Marianas? There are traffic circles all over the place, called different things in different places - rotary in New England comes to mind, circle in California (Long Beach has a notable one on the PCH near CSULB; San Francisco has a few).
You can have 'em. Who thought of those things as efficient? I can imagine a Benny Hill skit of a motorist getting in but never getting out of one.
Ever been on one of the French ones? Brings out all of the worst in them.

Prove they're not 'efficient'. Almost every study shows that they're time saving and fuel savings. Even a cursory glance at traffic circles, would lead anyone to believe that traffic that keeps moving is more efficient than traffic idling and wasting fuel. The problem you're alluding to is the 'idiot' that can't drive thru them. That's no fault of the circle. That's the fault of the moron behind the wheel, and THAT, is another issue..

Sorry, I disagree.

I'll let the Highway Safety studies institute and the insurance companies that claim they are safer and more efficient, know that you disagree. Of course they might ask you for your proof, not 'feelings'.

Traffic circles are safer, according to the NTSB, precisely because they the roundabout requires elevated driver awareness. Most accidents at intersections comes from two complacent drivers who simply aren't paying attention. Rotondes get your attention therefore you are more alert to other drivers.

Actually, roundabouts are primarily safer because they reduce the number of conflict points at an intersection.Roundabouts have 8 conflict points where a standard 4-way intersection has 32. http://www.roundabouts.us/w...

Further, roundabouts eliminate the number one cause of accidents, trying yo turn across traffic. With a roundabout a driver only has to focus on one impinging traffic point at a time, versus many at an intersection.

It's mainly because they just love telling people what to do. People hate traffic circles and don't want them. But they're European. That's why the social engineers want to jam the down our throats. If we used traffic circles all the time and intersections were a European innovation that people hated, they'd wax on about the great efficiency of intersections.

I think you're confusing social engineering, with traffic engineering. Two different things.

Firstly, not all traffic circles are roundabouts. Secondly, you don't speak for all people. Most people who have used roundabouts want more of them (http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/saf....

Secondly, the roundabouts in the U.S. are based on Australian designs, not European. (That's the place with kangaroos, not the place next to Germany)

Thirdly, roundabouts have been extensively studied and tested and their efficiency has been proven. It's simple logic. If you were coming to an intersection that either had A) A red light B) a stop sign or C) a roundabout...which do you think you'd be able to get through sooner?

They work some places, they don't in others. California, a fairly vast state with the best road and highway engineers around has very few roundabouts/circles/rotaries. And I've been on some of those free-flowing New England rotaries, particularly on the Cape, where summer traffic will be backed up for hours, for the modest privilege of driving through the rotary. Keep 'em back there. We in California prefer to try new, fresh ways to tie-up traffic.

Rotaries are not the same as roundabouts. Roundabouts are also quite well accepted in California. Just check out the CalTrans website: http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tp...

Whereas other states like to try fresh new ways of facillitating improved flow of traffic via use of roundabouts and other innovations.

We don't care about other states. In fact, we try to cut them off at our borders under the guise of "produce checks."

I didn't say they won't get backed up, LOL, Any huge volume of traffic will overwhelm the system, and Cape traffic is a freakin' nightmare in the summer, just like here in the Hampton's, where there's no room to build them. But they do keep traffic rolling with less idling time.. And on other parts of LI, they work just fine. As I said, it's the people that are the problem, not the circle..

Actually, a roundabout and a traffic circle are different things. Rotaries are different again. Traffic circle is the general, overarching name for all circular roadway designs. Think of a traffic circle as "fruit" and a roundabout as an "apple" and a rotary as an "orange".

Following on from this, roundabouts are efficient, but not all traffic circles are. Rotaries actually have a pretty poor design and are being phased out globally. What you're thinking of aren't roundabouts. Roundabouts reduce delay, increase efficiency and increase safety. This has been proven all over the world.

You may be interested in reading about the "Los Alamitos Traffic Circle" (Wikipedia) in Long Beach, the only one in Southern California (and I can think of none in NorCal). It's a good read. It makes your general point.

More often the roundabout intersection approach has its serious downsides: the main problem is, when the roundabout works properly, people on foot simply can't cross anywhere near it. So, they can become an accident prone location, and very dangerous spots to peds.
Roundabouts are OK in less crowded intersections, and really awful inside walkable neighborhoods.

there should be WAY more no left-hand turn signs on major roads without a dedicated left-turn lane anyways. It's insanely inefficient not just for the drivers, but all the poor people stuck behind them, which UPS isn't even taking into consideration (but civil engineers should)

Not every street is wide enough for so many lanes.

Or...maybe the civil engineers are actually FAR smarter than you are in every way imaginable, but especially when it comes to planning roads and knows that almost all the roads that don't have them, don't because of space limitations.

He didn't say all roads should have left turn lanes.

That's an inane comment. My comment was about no left turn SIGNS, which don't require any space at all.

Can you by any chance explain why civil engineers or traffic people rig the TCDs (traffic lights) to enforce stop-and-go traffic in BOTH directions sometimes? It just doesn't make sense - one light turns green and the next one turns red a second later.