New Jersey seems to be the only place I have heard of here that does not give cars in the circle the right of way. Maybe that is why they had so much trouble in DC. ;-)
We were always told that you can T bone someone who cuts you off while they were entering a circle and you were in it. It was a free paint job and you could get your dings all fixed. Maybe even have that old "bad neck" act up on you.
It doesn't have to be one of the other. They can do it on the basis of who gets there first.
But who gets there first wouldn't.
There is no logic involved. What works best is what matters. I'm not convinced that it makes any sense to have a roundabout in the middle of a major multilane highway with a high traffic volume on it.
By the finger signals you get from other drivers.
Which would not cause congestion, as alternate cars from each queue would go.
Then you get arguments as to who got there first, especially when you both get there at once. And remember, we're talking about Americans with their lower IQ.
It depends on how much traffic comes from each direction. There are many junction types and they should be modelled on computer first.
So only New Jersey doesn't have a clue. Priority to those already in the circle is the only sensible rule.
Not when the major highway stream is a continuous line of traffic so those who are in the circle who need to cross that stream can't cross that stream.
Yes, but the dashcam proves that.
Trivial to add yield to the right/left to that that only applys when they get there at the same time.
Only the black and hispanic ones. The asians will do fine. They are smarter than you.
No need to model anything when one stream is a major multilane highway.
That's what happens here. Upon thinking about this some more, some of what the NJ driver's manual says, though it sounds screwy, has some basis in logic. I compared two traffic circles here. The one is the one I described already, a highway with two lanes in each direction, 55mph limit that intersects a smaller local road. In that one it works like you say, in heavy highway traffic that traffic just keeps flowing, doesn't stop until a pause comes due to a light that's way upstream or similar.
The other circle is a highway, but it's only one lane, the speed limit is
45, there is a light a few hundred feet from it that breaks up traffic. In that circle, the flow is different, there are enough gaps so that traffic can kind of alternate almost, between the side road and the highway. Another factor there, visibility of the side road is very good. As I'm approaching I can look off to the right, see where other cars are, how fast they are going and I then adjust speed to either speed up and get through before them or slow a bit to let them go first. That other dual lane highway, with the speed disparity and not much visibility into cars approaching on the other road, the flow works out to give the highway priority. And people seem to sense that, even if they are new to the area. It's obvious that it's a major highway, cars moving at speed and you're on a small local road, so you tend to back off.So, I think that's the kind of thing the driver's manual is talking about, as screwy as it sounds. If the law was that cars on the circle always had priority, and it was followed, the busy highway circle would clear and not have the getting stuck problem. But it would come at the expense of significantly slowing the flow of traffic on the highway, which would likely really piss people off. That rule would be OK for local roads, but I don't think it would work well for a busy two lane highway.
Yeah, that?s what I meant early, why NJ doesn?t have an absolute those in the circle have priority rule.
Yeah, I agree.
I won't surrender until I'm attacked. Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes. Don't give up the ship!
That is why I think the idea of putting one in that intersection with
3 lanes coming in from all 4 directions is insanity.
And I agree with getting rid of the current ones like that now.
Seems to be just the opposite trend in Illinois and Wisconsin. Over the past five years or so it seems that every DOT wants to be able to say we've installed X traffic circles in the past X months.
FWIW, yes you yield to traffic in the circle but since all traffic circles here flow in a counter-clockwise direction you are yielding the LEFT of way. ;)
There's a traffic circle (ancient by local standards as its probably been in place for around 50 years) in Des Plaines Illinois. Has always been a bear to navigate for some reason. They are currently reworking it and as a result it's been reduced in lane width to more or less a single lane vs ~ 2½ lanes. They should have done it years ago as traffic has never flowed smoother (other than at 1 AM) than it has during the construction.
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