OT. Who needs a roundabout?

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But they seem to manage OK, with even the odd pedestrian dodging between the cars. We don't know how much the film has been speeded up, though. It could be that they're all actually moving at a snail's pace.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

TIA

"This Is Africa".

Its a favourite saying round the southern continent.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

But this is state of the art traffic management.

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Reply to
GB

well its de facto traffic management in most third world countries.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

That just shows that "progress" isn't. :)

Reply to
GB

En el artículo , GB escribió:

Great article. Thanks for the link.

"When you treat people like idiots, they'll behave like idiots". Quite.

Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

Shared space is all very well in theory until they do it in your local town. Our small town centre is essentially a roundabout (Squareish with a statue in the middle) with three roads joining and the first road has been converted and the second one starts soon. No Thank you. It was a lot better when pedestrians, motorists and delivery trucks knew which was their "bit" to use. Heaven knows how the partially sighted manage.

Reply to
Bob Minchin

En el artículo , Bob Minchin escribió:

I don't think it is a universal panacea, but would only work in certain situations. Britain's crowded, narrow streets probably wouldn't be suitable.

aye. I have nothing but respect for those that go out with a white stick (and no dog). Brave people.

Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

It works mainly because the traffic density is relatively low for that width of road. The crossing traffic also gets occasional periods when the junction is completely clear since the up/down traffic arrives in waves. A set of traffic lights are obviously controlling its arrival from the distant junction and the same is probably true for the traffic travelling up the screen.

Reply to
Nightjar

Badly

Reply to
bert

Monderman's party trick was to walk backwards across one of the junctions he had created. Until it was turned into shared space, it was a notorious accident spot.

Reply to
GB

In london we slow trafic by puttiing cycle highways in.

Reply to
whisky-dave

replying to harry, ScottRAB wrote: Modern roundabouts are the safest form of intersection in the world (much more so than comparable signals). Visit

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for modern roundabout FAQs and safety facts. Modern roundabouts, and the pedestrian refuge islands approaching them, are two of nine proven safety measures identified by the FHWA,
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The FHWA has a video about modern roundabouts on YouTube, or check out the IIHS video (iihs dot org).

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Reply to
ScottRAB

I think that qualifies for a WHOOSH!

Reply to
Graham.

Roundabouts are great until the road planners make one of three silly design decisions:

- Placing high barriers, hedges or signs on the central reservation as you approach the roundabout, so you lose sight of traffic coming from your right at the critical time when you need to see it, only regaining sight of it again when you are virtually at the give way line.

- Placing new roundabouts off-axis of the major road so traffic on the road with greatest flow has to deviate from the straight ahead route that it used to take before the roundabout was there.

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is an example: this shows the road before a new roundabout was put in.
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shows the new roundabout (in red) and a new road to serve a large development near there. The green circle shows where (IMHO) the roundabout ought to be. There seems to be a tendency with modern roundabouts to direct traffic towards the centre of the roundabout, with a tight left-curve in the last few feet, instead of splaying the entry and exit lanes slightly to direct traffic tangentially towards the outside of the central disc.

- Placing *raised* mini-roundabouts at junctions which used to be T junctions, such that traffic turning right has to make a very exaggerated left turn first of all to get onto the roundabout and to negotiate it without the rear wheels bumping over the hump. If there is insufficient space, the roundabout should be a painted disc so traffic can drive over the middle, once the roundabout has done its primary job of establishing equal priority to all the roads that lead into it.

But leaving those niggles aside, roundabouts are better than traffic lights at busy times, though worse at quiet times when lights would give a straight-through, no-need-to-slow-down-as-much route as long as you are going straight on. With good sensors, lights can even give a quick route on the road that has a red light, as long as the sensor temporarily turns the lights green to let you through because there's no-one on the other road.

They are infinitely better than American four-way-stop junctions which make everyone stop even if you can see that there is no traffic coming from any other direction that you would need to give way to. I don't like junctions which rely on order of arrival to determine priority, rather than according to position on the road, ie priority to traffic on major road (at a conventional major/minor crossroads) or to traffic coming from right (roundabout). Priority determined by position is better than priority determined by time of arrival. Any junction should have only one "winner" (according to well-known rules) rather than ever giving the same priority to two roads and relying on all the "I was here first / No *I* was here first / OK, after you / No, after *you*" faffing about that you get with a four-way-stop, which either leads to time-wasting stalemate or else crashes :-)

Reply to
NY

Though you think it's a bad idea, actually it's a sensible response to people thinking they can see enough and hence approaching the roundabout too fast, then crashing. If you can't see, you have to slow down. If people didn't overestimate their abilities coming into roundabouts, this wouldn't be necessary, but they do so it is.

Same game - it's about slowing you down.

You are allowed to drive over the raised bit of a mini-roundabout - that's why the edges are gentle, not kerbed. On the one near us, pretty much everybody turning right does it, and it's fine.

Isn't almost anything better than those?

Reply to
Clive George

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