I'm from the UK, and many years ago I was watching the news on the TV showing a major power outage in the USA. There was a scene of a cop trying to direct traffic at a set of dead lights. Suddenly I had a realisation; roundabouts keep working when the power goes out!
That’s another huge benefit of roundabouts. Once you learn how to use them with the way you have to yield people use the same process if the lights at an intersection fail, you switch to the same yield process as a roundabout….it works.
@@douglasmcclelland Yep, here in Australia, give way to the right. if you're turning giveway to straight ahead traffic, as if you had a green Circle, but no arrow.
I love the whole "i'm affraid to miss my exit" angle... Because that's what makes roundabouts so great! They let you miss your exit, but then you just go around again, and you get it the second time, saving you from having to find alternate routes or turning around somewhere else...
I once came to a roundabout in Mexico, and I wanted the road to Monterey. There were 3 signs pointing to a different road to that city! I went around 3 times trying to figure which one I wanted.
@@paulmoffat9306 I've done that too if I know my exit is from the roundabout but not sure; I'll just keep in the right lane (driving on left side) to go around at least once to be sure of my exit.
Her "argument" of it taking so much longer when you have to go around 2 or 3 times is pathetic. That takes what, maybe a minute, minute and a half tops?. Sounds more like an impatient adult child.
@@slate613 Takes even less when you know where you're supposed to get off and not keep going in circles for hours screaming "how do I get off this thing?!!!". If roundabout are so complicated for her then maybe she shouldn't be driving at all lol.
I’m from the UK so it always seems insane to me how anyone could think roundabouts aren’t the pinnacle of junction solutions…..the phrase ‘it’s a no brainer’ springs to mind.
It depends though. On a Road with little traffic and one main direction of traffic flow the roundabout will slow down most people, although they get there alone and could just drive through if the main road had priority. You get that a lot when driving over french country roads.
exactly. I live in a small town that is the sort of 'hub' for all the smaller communities around, we have roundabouts along the main street, I can't imagine how these intersections would work without them, the town is not large enough for traffic lights, but a standard T junction just would not work.
I live in the "Roundabout Capital" of the U.S. and I love them. On certain stretches of road, it used to take 25 - 30 minutes to get from point A to point B. Now it takes around 7 minutes. We're a town of around 100k, have 140+ roundabouts, and only 15 traffic lights remaining. It has improved the flow of traffic immensely.
I think the issue with roundabouts in America, is as you don't need lessons, and the test is easy compared to the rest of world, I wouldn't surprised if roundabouts cause a lot of accidents in America due to people not giving way properly etc
Exactly. I live in Poland and there are roundabouts everywhere. But one rather small city (Rybnik) figured out to get rid absolutelly every intersection in favour of roundabouts. It's the only kind of intersection in that city. Maaan.... how fluent driving is there. If it's not rush hours of course you can drive from one end to another without SINGLE STOP. Why people don't get it???
@@Uniques97 What's so complicated about it? Entering roundabout you're giving a way to everyone who's already on roundabout. And you only have to look left. You don't give a shit about right side. How's that suppose to be more complicated than typical intersection? What the hell is wrong with people?
@@booboss Hold on there. You have not been on many Dutch one's i bet... Here we often have a bicycle lane on them as well but whatch out Those bicycle's come from BOTH directions at the same time... Then there are some with special buslane's or even trams THAT cut schrijfacties over them.... I know sounds like a mess but they are still faster and safer. But since a few years they started building them with the midle parts raised high or putting trees art etc on it. The idea was jou can not see across them thus reducing the speed. Time will have to tell but those i am o van of
@@mauricematla8379 OK - in city like Sosnowiec we have a HUGE roundabout with trams invloved. This complicates things a lot because this trams are cutting the inner "island" or ring of the roundabout. And I know the pain. Those ones can be really diffucult. I don't even know why city is complicating this so much. But in regular roundabout (without cyclists and trams) it's straight forward. YES - I AGREE - when it comes to more complicated roundabouts with trams and cyclist it can be very confusing. But in such cases let's simply don't do a roundabouts but simple street lights. However on most cases roundabout is simplier type of intersection than street signals alike. I'm not saying that on major intersections of the city where everything is crossing around roundabout is the best. But on minor intersections it's just perferct. It only slows you down but doesn't force you to stop or wait on red light for like a minute.
Live in France. There are so many in my country that you often find art sculptures in the middle of the circle. Sometimes it's to represent a symbol, or a local culture of the city or the district. It's really cool, we discover a bit of the local culture by using the roundabout.
@@divingstag Nous les aimons tellement ces ronds point que cela pourrait en devenir ridicule ;). De chez moi à chez mon meilleur ami à 2,5 km, j'ai 5 ronds points ! We love those so much that it could become ridicule :)) From my home to my best friend's who is living only 2,5 km away, there are 5 roundabout !
@@mallorygoossens8270 J'ai vu un quartier à Angoulême avec 5 ronds-points directement à la suite, mais bon si ça permet de pas s'arrêter à un stop ou un feu pour rien dans des zones désertes 90% du temps ça me va
@@divingstag Tout a fait d'accord ! Avec ma femme nous nous amusons du fait que pour donner n'importe quelle direction à quelqu'un, y'a toujours "au rond point à [droite ou gauche"]" mdr !
From a truck drivers point of view, when approaching an intersection and looking for vehicles to yield to, the big mirrors mounted on the doors actually hinder your vision a lot when looking to the side. You have to constantly bend forward or push your head back hard into the headrest to look around the mirror when coming to an intersection. With roundabouts you don't have to look through the door window across the cab, you only need to look through the one right next to you because the traffic is only coming from that direction. I've had some near misses at T junctions because of my failure to see behind the left door mirror, (RHD truck, I'm Australian), but never once on a roundabout.
Just to add to that trucks flow through roundabouts kinda natural even the very small ones. No one want's to be on the outside of them so they can just go stright through whitout anyone getting mad or any dangerus situations accoring even whit long and big loads.
Mostly near Toronto Canada we only got the small roundabouts. Haven't seen the bigger ones that have 2 lanes in them. Got 1 problem with a fairly new roundabout on Skymark ave & explorer dr Mississauga, Ontario. Ive seen semis having to go on top of it when making their turn. Probably be a problem when winter comes.
Not mentioning it's simply easier for truck go through roundabout because you don't have to make tight and precission turn. Said by proffesional player of Euro Truck Simulator & American Truck Simulator ^^ xDDD And yes, mirrors in trucks not only covers left / right side but also covers a lot traffic lights. This applies to Europe only since traffic lights are before intersection and not behind intersection like in US (which is much smarter in my opinion). However driving in ATS for the first time during first hour I passed red light so many times because I wasn't used to it that street lights are behind intersection. But this is a manner of getting used to it. Still smarter than shit we have in Europe. Even in small car you sometimes stop in Europe on light and have to wave your head or duck in the car cause you don't see lights. It's stupid. America made it better.
I'm from Italy and when I started to drive, almost every intersection in my town was a roundabout, so at the beginning I was actually scared of traffic lights because I wasn't used to those. That means to me that maybe people are scared more of something they are not used to in general
With lights there are always some drivers who speed up to get through before they change to red, this is why the collisions can be more serious or fatal.
@@Phiyedough Everywhere would have people doing that I'm sure. In Aus we have red light and speed cameras to deter people a bit, is that common in the US?
@@sassylaffy15 Hahaha! No hate whatsoever! 😂, No way, we all have our peculiar sides, I guess anyone could find a dozen about Swedes in general 😳🫣🤣! It was just an observation 🥰😆
I'm from Germany and visited the US in 2019. At the time they had installed a new roundabout in Colorado close to where i was staying and it was insane how people were overwhelmed by it. I had regularly people hard stopping while driving in them, people going left through them instead of right which is dangerous, just because they never saw one before i would assume. It wasnt even a big roundabout but rather a small, single-laned one between towns. They really need to improve educating drivers about them
@@kareno7848I mean we learned how to use roundabouts in Europe before even starting with our driving lessons. You learn by seeing others doing it. It’ll take some time before you all get used to it
I'm sorry but how do you accidentally go the wrong way around a roundabout? I'm from the UK and we go clockwise, and even if the roundabout was empty it would actually be really awkward taking a right turn and going round it anti-clockwise. That's just pure stupidity
@@cheman579 That you guys in the UK go left might have to do with the circumstance that you drive on the left side, as one of very few countries in the world. Rest of the world that drives on the right lane goes counter-clockwise.
I am from an European city which had big issues with congestion. The city hall started putting temporary roundabouts and disabling the stop lights - after they saw that it was fixing most of the congestion issues, they replaced them with permanent roundabouts, it improved things significantly.
As a German you started getting used to roundabouts as soon as you entered France on your holiday trip. When I was still a kid in the 70s they were everywhere in France and at that time I did not know one in Germany. Today they are all over Germany - only problem is: almost all of them had to be integrated into already existing roads in a densely populated country, so roundabouts in Germany are A LOT smaller than the ones shown in the video ( about 1/3 of the size) which makes it a little uncomfortable to use them - but still better than having to stop at red lights.....
A roundabout is like a straight road where you can only turn right, and that gives you a second chance if you miss your turn. I was skeptical when they started becoming common in this town, but there's no denying that they improve the flow of traffic immensely.
Roundabouts are intended as well to slow down trafic. Inside cities, the limit are 50kmh. But no one respect, and we get an average of 100kmh top speed. With roundabouts we have to slow down, and some cant turn on time and crash agaisnt the roundabout. And what you can say to the insurance company and the police? How could you miss the roundabout if you go at 50kmh? And now, all our road crosswalks are lifted, and if you pass them over 20kmh, you crash the car in the botton, and again, your fault for not respecting speed limits. Police here just dont care anymore about speed control, because they just dont need to care... Who speed up, destroys the car, and its impossible to not be guilty of the crash, because the signs are visible... ;)
@@Dimetropteryx thats why even the police likes them.... Mainly the lifted road crosswalks. If we dont know the road, driving on night, we are drive always in high alert, and sometimes bam!
I'm form Bordeaux, France. Roundabouts are everywhere here. And we love them. The nice thing is even with traffic jams, when at a roundabout you'll quite often see people stopping and letting you in the roundabout. It favor "zip" merging thus the traffic is always flowing. 👍🏼
@@definitelynotatroll246 Same here in Australia (mostly). Zip merging is the default mode most people go to in heavy traffic situations, including letting people out of businesses etc.
I am from Bristol UK (twined with Bordeaux) we have lots of roundabouts too. I used to go to Bordeaux most summers with my parents as a child. We would stay about an hour from Bordeaux in Contis Plague (near Mimizan) I have very good memories of that region, I would love to return there some day (I used to go there in the 80's.90's)
Roundabouts are intended as well to slow down trafic. Inside cities, the limit are 50kmh. But no one respect, and we get an average of 100kmh top speed. With roundabouts we have to slow down, and some cant turn on time and crash agaisnt the roundabout. And what you can say to the insurance company and the police? How could you miss the roundabout if you go at 50kmh? And now, all our road crosswalks are lifted, and if you pass them over 20kmh, you crash the car in the botton, and again, your fault for not respecting speed limits. Police here just dont care anymore about speed control, because they just dont need to care... Who speed up, destroys the car, and its impossible to not be guilty of the crash, because the signs are visible... ;)
In France there is a trend that consists in little towns putting roundabouts at the entry of the village to slow people down but also to decorate its center with flowers or symbols of the village letting people know they enter a well maintained village. That is why there are so much roundabouts (30 000 in a territory that is 10ths of times smaller than the US)
A traffic engineer here, designed a few here in Oz. The entry speed is reduced by horizontal deflection plus the give way rule makes it safer than priority controlled intersections.
@Matthew Brawn Im not a traffic engineer, but ill throw in my 2 cents because why not. I assume firstly your left is in left hand traffic (or right hand drive). Basically it all comes down to road markings. I drive on a roundabout everyday to and from work that has two exits (three total for a u-turn). One direction I go has left only and right/uturn only. The lane isnt protected left only, however, and as such I have to give way. There is no markings to suggest otherwise, and has a give way line. When I come from the other direction though there is a protected left lane. This is marked by a lack of give way line, as well as a solid white line which separates the left lane the whole way round the roundabout. People in the roundabout should NEVER find themselves crossing this white line (although I have seen it once and the guy that had priority/ was in the correct lane had to emergency brake). TLDR: Probably you will still have to yield, but it depends I guess on your countries rules in general and specific road markings/signs in this case.
Matt, Paul had answered it well. There are various lane configurations you can design for a roundabout approach. It is determined by the traffic flow patterns.
I was in Milton Keynes yesterday and the whole city is linked with a grid of roundabouts and 70mph dual carriageway roads between them. Even when it's quite busy, the traffic just flows... I went across the whole city and didn't have to stop once. It reminded me how perfect roundabouts are.
my home town. My commute is across most of the city. It's 6 minutes. I can stay in 4th gear most of the way if I want (diesel car) though ususally drop to 3rd for the roundabout, then back up to 70 again in a few seconds after the roundabout.
The worst part about lights is when there is quite literally no traffic. This happens to me a ton in Australia, and for some reason my local area has been replacing small roundabouts with traffic lights, you end up waiting at a red light on an empty intersection for a whole minute, with a police station in view if you ran the light. We're trying to follow the US too much with traffic.
Doesn't make any sense, right? Why not roundabound instead? In Europe however we have something called "intelligent lights". Intersections are equipped with cameras connected to computer. If it sees you're the only car comming to intersection it will turn light green for you. Also it controls traffic for whole intersection. So if this direction actually having green light has no more cars comming in it will change light to green for other direction. Also it can prioritize traffic for example for city buses so if that direction has bus in lane it will be prioritized.
In Tromsø Northern Norway. The traffic actually flows better when the traffic lights is not functioning correctly. Except for one place on the southern entrance to the city tunnel where you HAVE to have a traffic light because of a big cement wall and left turn to big vehicles like a truck or a bus or something. And don't forget you're driving a strech and you have NO traffic and somehow YOU manage to only hit red lights on the short stretch of road you're driving
In the Netherlands roundabouts are widely used. But even those intersections that use lights, they are fitted with sensors in the pavement and so lights in lanes where there is no traffic will stay red and those that see lots of traffic will turn green more often and stay green longer. When you approach an intersection and there is no traffic in other lanes, your light will turn green even before you come to a full stop.
Don't they turn off the traffic lights during low traffic hours? In Croatia sometimes the traffic lights just blink yellow at night, indicating to follow the priority signs instead. They could also install sensors or cameras to dynamically control the lights.
I am from Germany, over here roundabouts are veeery common, thus we learn how to use them from the getgo while we are doing our license. They are easy to use and increase the traffic flow, I like them a lot
@@RustyDust101 Isn't it Horner Kreisel? And I think it is more of a traffic circle instead of a turnabout? At least I think there are traffic lights in the circle.
Its common, but idiots - district administrator (Landrat) - in east germany north of saxony don't like them. The district administrator had traffic lights built instead. Traffic accident was not long in coming.
"but when they are forced to rely on their own driving ability, as well as others, it causes a confusing and distressing experience".... Well at this point, if you feel that way, you should immediately stop driving completely. Cause literally, how do you solve any situations that can randomly come up and you have to deal with it in the moment, but it's not regulated..... If one can't at least rely on his own driving ability then this Person shouldn't be allowed to drive.
I have seen a lot of "Idiots in cars" compilations with American content. Most of it involves a situation anybody could have seen developing a mile off. BUT! 1. I have right of way so I'm going to crash to prove a point. 2. The initial crash is in a different lane so I'm going to speed past it to avoid it - oops I didn't make it. 3. That light has only just turned red 5 seconds ago. I'll just speed through it before the other guys can get moving. 4. Something is happening. Should I use the brakes? Probably. NO! THE HORN! THE HORN!
You are of course correct in what you write, but the lure of being able to drive with your brain more or less turned off is a strong sentiment for many people, and certainly not only in the US, but in most countries I would say.
@@kiljaeden7663 You can see these video's (or live if you drive) in any country.. Idiots are idiots and distractions / inattention happens, which is the cause of most of the "WTF is that guy doing" type situations.
@@dzzope yeah but I don't understand those people. I am only 26 years old but I already saw a ton of dangerous people. Driving is dangerous anyways, and if people turn their brain off they are a danger to anyone, like not looking into the mirrors (incredibly dangeeous), changing lanes way to close ahead of the car behind, driving very slow on the fast lane (this one especially pisses me off because in Germany you are not allowed to overtake the one on the fast lane (fast is left, "slow" is right) so they basically force anyone to drive slow which leads to traffic jam), the list goes on and on and on, BUT those things are important. I always think "please get off the road, you are a threat and not only to you but also others" Like you GOT to use your brain when driving
My town in Norway didn't have any for a long time, and when i found out we would be getting 4 of them, i didn't want them, but now i'm annoyed that there's only 4
When I was a little kid, the intersection at the edge of my village was changed to a roundabout. Before, there were many deadly accidents there, because one of streets came down a hill, and people assumed, especially at night, that no one else is on the road. Since the roundabout is there, there have not been any deadly accidents, even though, there have been small ones at the beginning, some idiots mowed down the pretty flowers planted in the middle of the roundabout...
Meanwhile my hometown decided to turn our roundabout to traffic lights on top of bridge for no reason besides looking pretty and now I see congestion every rush hour... Our city planner definitely missing a degree.
Up here in Canada, my city started building these around 7 years back or so. There was the usual low-level carping from those who, for some reason, always feel life owes them the right to never have to learn anything new, but even people who had never encountered the structures quickly adapted to them. Within 5 years, it was a complete non-issue, mostly due to the fact that roundabouts are so clearly superior to old-style intersections in so many respects.
Right? I was thrilled when they started building them in high-traffic flow areas in the Durham region. I would love for them to add more, so we can get rid of more of the time-wasting traffic lights. And I know exactly what you mean. People haaaaaate having to learn something new.
Roundabouts are the most effective model to keep traffic flowing, the issue is, a lot of people don't learn how to properly use them, how to indicate onto and off, dual lane ones can be confusing to many aswell.
Agreed. It didn't help that the UK Highway Code really didn't provide good guidance and examples until well after I had started driving. People tended to do what was practical rather than consistent.
Cal Travels You have not yet mastered the English language There is NO SUCH WORD in t e English language as "" aswell "" What diction-ary are you using ? Did you consider reading BOOKS to learn and improve your English ? For the record there is also no such word as "" alot "" in the English language. Though there is "" allot" - refer to the dictionary fro the meaning of it as well.
@@andrew_koala2974 He forgot to hit the space bar ONCE and you accuse him of, basically, being stupid? Also, he did not type alot, you can tell because his post doesn't say edited. . . Also t and e are not words in the English language, they're letters. You need to calm down.
I really hate traffic lights, it's SOOO annoying standing there, and when the intersection is empty (at night for example) you STILL have to w8 and even longer when the damn signal is broken!. a roundabout makes so much sense, drive slowly to the front, watch if there is someone coming, if not, got for it, almost no wai(s)ting time.
Traffic lights are fine when they are set up and are working properly. Not when every intersection you come to is a red light or when you're a pedestrian waiting 5 minutes at a crossing for a green light AT AN EMPTY STREET WITH NO CARS.
"I'm afraid to miss my exit" - well, if for whatever reason you miss your turn at an intersection (the type that isn't a roundabout) you will have a way harder time correcting that mistake than in a roundabout. In a roundabout, you just drive one more round. With intersections, you have to find a place to turn around safely.
We have a lot of roundabouts in Australia and if used correctly the traffic flows smoothly. The only issue is that some people don't use their indicators correctly to allow others to know what they plan to do
I worked in Canberra, Australia's capital, for many years and it embraces roundabouts more than any other Australian city. The National Parliament House is in the middle of a GIANT roundabout. Flying into Canberra at night is marvellous as all the streetlights in the roundabouts make a glittering paisley carpet as you make a final approach.
maybe i'm too european but i'm not sure about classifying the one around Capital Hill as a roundabout... even if there's "yield", there's also two-way traffic, intersections, lights, you can turn in both directions etc.... looks to me like a regular road made in a giant circle shape... still looks amazing though
I remember when they were first introduced in NSW. There was a certain amount of apprehension among some drivers. I recall my parents discussing them..."Why do we need them? What a waste of time and money." However they, like all the other drivers, quickly got used to them and soon much preferred the roundabouts to signalised intersections because they were so much quicker. If Australian drivers could adapt to them very quickly, I'm quite sure American drivers would also be capable of doing so.
the problem is they require knowledge of, and adherence to the law and a degree of co-operation. In Victoria the only vehicles approaching a roadabout that you have to give way to are trams and emergency vehicles with alarms active, otherwise its just vehicle already in the roundabout on your right.
@@ianmontgomery7534 It's not always the vehicle on your right. When entering in a heavy vehicle (slow) I can enter way before the vehicle that appears on my right.
@@Blanchy10 heh, I was once driving a slow farm tractor and a trailer from the repair shop back to the farm. There's a roundabout on the way. IIRC there was some cars I had to yield to so I had to slow down to let them go. Then there was a gap so I entered the rab, just before a car could enter. I won by maybe 2 seconds. He wasn't on the rab yet, so I didn't have to yield. :-=) iirc I only got the tractor in before he was there waiting for me to move!
Roundabouts are intended as well to slow down trafic. Inside cities, the limit are 50kmh. But no one respect, and we get an average of 100kmh top speed. With roundabouts we have to slow down, and some cant turn on time and crash agaisnt the roundabout. And what you can say to the insurance company and the police? How could you miss the roundabout if you go at 50kmh? And now, all our road crosswalks are lifted, and if you pass them over 20kmh, you crash the car in the botton, and again, your fault for not respecting speed limits. Police here just dont care anymore about speed control, because they just dont need to care... Who speed up, destroys the car, and its impossible to not be guilty of the crash, because the signs are visible... ;)
Australians are quite intuitive and will adapt reasonably quickly. North Americans are so intensely brainwashed / indoctrinated that they cannot and plain refuse to think outside-the-box and step outside of their very narrow world-view. It is truly sad that they have been deceived - indoctrinated = mentally and socially manipulated their entire life and do not realize it. It was a great social experiment that was dreamed up in approximately 1890 - and the dumbing down of the population started in 1970 by totally corrupting and destroying the US education system - We now see the result of a largely inarticulate - illiterate - poorly educated population with a very limited vocabulary that are like Goldfish in a US centric fishbowl believing that the USA is the center of the universe
Canada here, we have tons of stop lights. About 15 years ago one of the roads nearby installed 2 roundabouts and they are awesome. I wish we had a lot more of them.
As a resident of sweden i see roundabouts on the daily, you don't even have to stop if you use them if you plan ahead and look, being a trucker also that drives 78ft rigs that is also a challenge, especially if they are smaller ones, being that long you need to have good planning to be able to keep going for fuel costs
Australian here. Roundabouts are the best option. I'm extremely frustrated at the moment because I contacted my local council representative argueing that roundabouts are superior and should be used more often and he flat out said no, I disagree. Our engineers say lights are better... Like, yeah, of course they do, it keeps them in the jobs "trying" to "fix" the traffic issues we have.😤
@@SnowyRVulpix did you not watch the video? 😂 roundabouts are safer and reduce accidents and severity of injuries when there are accidents. If more lights were replaced with roundabout and we had higher standards and policing of the relevant road rules things would be much better.
The small act of simply being vigilant, attentive and of looking ahead, allows the roundabout to work very efficiently. Just from my experience of driving here in the UK, it's easy to take for granted just how much distance one can cover, with multiple turns and interchanges, without needing to stop or even slow down that much!
Great video. Two things. A rotary is different to a traffic circle. A rotary may or may night have signals, but if you get in the correct lane when you enter, it will force you out onto the correct road. 2nd, a big reason why they're safer is because crashes are more often glancing blows rather than T-boners or head on collisions.
I'm from Belgium, lots of roundabouts here as well. Overall they're great, the largest benefits being able to keep the flow of traffic going and the reduced amount of accidents. And like you said, happy to save petrol wherever possible. I saw someone from France comment they often have art sculptures in the middle section that represent something from the area you're in, it's the same here in Belgium, which is pretty cool I guess.
On intersection with more than four roads, the classic intersection always ends up as a convoluted mess of turn lanes and signals. With a roundabout, you just plonk down another exit where needed and it just works. Plus (at least here in Austria), those roundabout centers sometimes get used to display some local artwork (sculptures and stuff) or get turned into one of artsy pools with the fancy computer-controlled fountains that change the height of each fountain according to some pattern. Well, the government (federal, state or local city) sometimes has to fund some artist and then put up the resulting artwork somewhere public, so might as well put that stuff in the middle of a roundabout for everyone to see.
I'm from Spain. Just got my drivers license in January. I can't immagine not having roundabouts. I mean, we also have regular intersections, but for example, just to get on and off the freeway right outside my town you have to go through 2 roundabouts; in my practical exam, the first thing I was told to do was get to the nearest roundabout. They are easy to use, you just need to pay attention to when you can join and to the signs that signal which exit goes to where, that's it.
I remember, even before roundabouts were a thing in Spain (yes I'm that old!), you had some kind of 1 entry - 1 exit roundabouts called "cambio de sentido" (direction change) whose only function was a safe U-turn if you were on the wrong road. It's still an appreciated feature of modern road junction roundabouts.
@@joeldumas5861 When they are regulated by lights, you can even use them to skip the light by turning right on the light instead of doing the U-turn when not explicitely forbidden (truquillo de repartidor xD).
I'm from Sydney NSW, they are everywhere. I take mainly motorways and main roads on my 20 minute drive to work, but I pass through 3 on my way to work and 5 on my way home. It's not uncommon to drive through 10 or more in a drive though, I love roundabouts when there's no traffic and I'm cruising around, it makes driving more exciting
I remember when Sydney didn't have any roundabouts, I can assure they are a big improvement (I also remember when Sydney had level crossings and people regularly getting killed when hit by trains because they ignored the signals and boom gates). Brisbane might have been first with roundabouts but they are really lagging on level crossings.
@@daveamies5031 true that. I grew up in Sydney and we meoved up to Brisbane in the early 80s. There were roundabouts everywhere up there and Sydney didn't have hardly any back then...
That's a very very cool channel! France here, there's no traffic light in my city, they've been all replaced by round-about , and since then : no more traffic jam neither serious accident, the first time i came accross round-about with the driving school it made me quite nervous but it became quickly a second nature.
We also don't have roundabouts in Toronto Canada, but I lived in the UK and now in Germany for all together 7 years now, I never found it unsafe, it's actually way more efficient than stopping at the lights. It makes a lot of sense especially getting in and out of the interstate.
As an European who's driven in Spain and Portugal, I barely see and use intersections with street lights. Vast majority of intersections have roundabouts. The town I grew up in has an intersection with streetlights and they're actually planning to substitute it with a roundabout at the moment.
10:00 - aw - my heart melts! Whether Lief was being serious or not, he just knew that he would get a positive response from the British inventor of the roundabout. I think he was quoting Churchill in a very British humour way. Put it this way - if I had invented the roundabout, I would have leapt at the chance to help him.
I live in Mallorca (Spain) and 90% of intercity road intersections have roundabouts and a lot of them have them too inside the cities. They are, by far, the best improvement in road design ever.
I'm French and it is super common around here. You actually have to learn how to use them when learning how to drive and to get your license. It's always been something I take for granted so it didn't even occur to me that some parts of the world might not have them until I was an adult lol
I have driven in many of the US states and first time had never come across a 4 way give way (yield), never even heard of them (have never come across anything like it in Australia), but I was able to work it out and see how it works. Learning new rules and different ways of driving is easy, safety is more important than excuses!!
I live in France and about 40 years ago the 20-30 traffic lights of the city where replaced with roundabouts. the only one kept is the one at the biggest entry of the city to make sure more cars are getting out of the city than cars entering
Hi Ian, I am in Newcastle NSW Australia. We have a fair number of roundabouts, none are ridiculously large but some are very small (pimple abouts) or odd shaped (egg abouts) not a real problem once you get used to them. Cheers from Australia mate.
I'm from the UK and roundabouts are part of our everyday driving experience. We use them when learning to drive, so from an early age. I couldn't imagine living only with intersections. Great video btw. Oh, and although I'm English I love MLB and NASCAR too - so I love your content.
Dutch here, we got loads of roundabouts already and I see more and more junctions with traffic light being replaced. Because we thought that the busier junctions weren't letting enough cars go through we decided to make up a new type of roundabout , dubbed the 'turbo-roundabout', which have multiple entry lanes for different directions and restrictions so you can't switch lanes while on the roundabout. You take the lane for the direction you want to go and the roundabout will spit you out in that direction after following the optimal path.
I remember way back when I just learning to drive I was terrified of roundabouts. We have several with 3 lanes where I live, and proper usage means preselecting your lane before you reach the intersection, which means planning ahead. But after getting use to them, I do agree that it's way better than waiting at traffic lights.
Here in Australia a roundabout is a massive part of the written test; there is no way that you could get an Oz driving licence without being familiar. Actually our most "lethal" road type has been the level crossing: where you stop in front of train tracks and boom gates come down before a train passes. Level crossings are starting to be phased out entirely in favour of bridges, tunnels etc. Somehow people were going through the level crossings and crashing into oncoming trains.
I had a summer holiday in the US back in the early 2000's. My hosts lived on a four way stop out in the middle of nowhere. In the three months I was there, there were about 4-5 accidents on that intersection. If that had been a roundabout, I can guarantee it would have been zero.
I saw a RU-vid video of an American who was in the UK for work or was in the forces on a posting. He showed why he liked roundabouts with a dashcam recording of his trip from buying groceries back to where he was staying. It was about 5 miles and he went through about 3 roundabouts and never came to a stop until he reached his destination. He said he just enjoyed the smooth flow so much more than the stop start of light controlled intersections. There is a big but to roundabouts that you should be aware of, they have a choking effect if traffic flow passes a critical point that exceeds what they can cope with. Traffic flow through a junction needs to be measured carefully before the choice of lights or a modern roundabout is made. You can of course put controlling lights on the entry to a roundabout to help control the traffic and also use the lights part time as well if there is only a problem at certain times in the day.
You also have to consider the type of roundabout (rab). A standard one lane rab can take upto approx 1000 vehicles per hour, a two lane rab is upto approx 2000 vehicles per hour, a turbo rab can take between 3500 vehicles per hour or 35000 per day depending on the style of turbo rab. And a turbo is the safest of the lot with 30-40% reduction in crashs over a 2 lane rab. If you are starting to get over 35000 vehicles per day imho you should be looking to interchanges, not lights
Why would you need lights at the entrance of a roundabout since incoming traffic has to yield to traffic already on the roundabout? You can get stuck in traffic waiting to get on the roundabout but that's the same for stoplights and will happen less since the throughput of the roundabout is higher.
@@Ekitchi0 Because the traffic flow can exceed the capacity of the roundabout. If that happens you end up with stopped traffic on the roundabout effectively choking it and reducing flow. It is possible for one inroad to be blocked by a near continuous flow of traffic from another road onto the roundabout.
@@martinconnelly1473 if the incoming traffic exceeds the capacity of the roundabout, the traffic is stopped from entering because they have to yield to the traffic already on the roundabout. The only way to have traffic blocked on the roundabout is if an exit is blocked by a traffic jam further down the road.
@@Ekitchi0 If the traffic from one direction is high enough they can stop any other traffic trying to get onto the roundabout because they fill the roundabout leaving no place for traffic from other directions to get onto the roundabout. If you had experience of high volume roundabouts you would understand this.
I stayed in Sedona, AZ for a few days not long ago, and it was my first exposure to a city with a lot of roundabouts. It took me about 2 roundabouts to get used to it.
In the US the drivers seems very impatient and waiting at red lights seem to increase aggravation and running red lights. We have seen enough dash cams that these situations have helped and the resultant fall outs. Roundabouts have proved to be safer, quicker and take up a lot less room and use less power.
I'm portuguese and we have loads of roundabouts all across the country. I live in a relatively small sized city but we have 22 roundabouts in the urban area alone, two of them exist for more than 60 years. Just imagine how many lives wouldn't have been taken, how much electricity would've been saved and how much pollution would've been avoided if the US had adopted roundabouts 50 or 60 years ago.
I love how New Zealand had three markers on the map at 3:33 - roundabouts are everywhere and in most situations make far more sense. Though I'm not sad to see the end of the 3-lane, 7-road roundabout in Panmure (Auckland)!
I remember in summer 2002 or 2003 when I worked for me grandpa I used his second car which was this small old Honda and it had bad clutch and problem with 1 gear, you had to keep it on place with force or it did go off the gear, so I did drive around in me hometown using smaller streets so I hadn't use traffic light one as much. Luckily there were few roundabouts to help it.
From the UK, live in Australia. Roundabouts very common in both countries and I very much like them as a traffic measure. I learned something new here though in this: didn't know those horrific 'roundabouts with lights on them' was a different thing altogether predating roundabouts. I truly hate them as much as I truly love a roundabout.
Two things I teach my kids when driving where roundabouts are concerned always give way to the right ( uk ) and never assume that the person in front of you is on the ball and looking at the space coming up ( he could be fiddling with his radio messing with his phone turning up the heat in his car or simply be in the wrong gear or stall then you end up in the back of them. ) so never pull out until they are gone
i live in the uk (the home of the modern roundabout) , i was born in 1962 and ,we all learned how to drive with roundabouts in our driving test!. once you learn them they are far more efficient and safe and become second nature to do (like riding a bike, once you learn its easy). PER AREA i guess UK has the most roundabouts.
I'm from outside of Detroit, Michigan (US) and I was a bit scared of them at first. We didn't really have any around here for the longest time and honestly, I may've been a bit influenced by European Vacation and The Simpsons when I saw things like that. I was willing to give them a chance but a bit scared of them at the same time because they were different and I didn't know what I was doing. I consider myself lucky though because the first roundabout I ever knew about was built on the route I took to go see my girlfriend at the time (wife now). But that road it was built on was the main road having a 90 degree turn with a smaller (might have even been dirt) road coming in to connect to the curve. So when that became a circle I was basically making the same turn but just had to go to one side a little bit more before making the turn. After a few times around it I had no problem with that one. It's not like there was a ton of traffic on that road anyhow. Years later they built some more much closer to me and those ones were bigger and had more roads connected to it and that was a lot scarier to me. I think one of my main issues, outside of just not being used to them, was that I got lost (or felt like I did) while going around it. I'd be concentrating on going in a circle while also watching for the signs and trying to make sure I didn't just end up going back the way I already came. It was very confusing to me at first and for the most part I avoided them but was also fascinated. What I think finally helped me was looking at Google Earth pictures of them and finally putting it together that it was just like the intersections I was used to but it just had a big circle in the middle of it. Intersections made more sense to me at first because if I wanted to go straight, I'd go straight. If I wanted to turn left, I'd turn left. With a circle it made it much more confusing and I lost all sense of direction. But once I visualized that it was still the same intersection it got a lot easier. If I wanted to turn right then I'd take that first exit. If I wanted to go straight I'd hit the second exit. Plus I feel they put more signs up before the roundabout. Now, I don't have trouble with them at all. I have no problem believing that they're safer. I know I get scared of the idea all of the time that someone might run a red light and hit me. Sadly, I've seen plenty of people drive right through red lights. Either because they saw no one coming, or they were racing to beat the light, or they just plain didn't even realize the light was red. Thankfully never saw someone get into an accident with those. I do agree with the video in that people probably do get a bit confused and prefer the binary of red and green. Whatever they don't have to think about. I'd be happy to see many more roundabouts here though. I get sick of that whole mentality people around here seem to have where they don't want anything that other countries are doing. Even if it's proven to work so much better they don't want it. Not sure if it's American exceptionalism or what but it needs to stop. Why don't we have newer trains? But roundabouts are a start. Baby steps, I guess.
European Vacation was wrong, though: the car within the roundabout has the right of way and the cars waiting to enter need to yield. That way you're always guaranteed a free exit from the roundabout.
@@LMB222 Well yeah, it was very exaggerated for the movie to make it bug, confusing, and impossible to get out of. They had to make it busy and chaotic or else the joke wouldn't work where he gets stuck in the middle. Though I may need to watch it again as I thought I remembered numerous lanes that went in a complete circle making it totally possible that someone could get stuck if there were too many cars next to him. Either way, it didn't matter. I started seeing that movie since I was a kid and it made them look big and intimidating. I didn't know what they'd actually be like until I got older and finally ran into one. Took many years to find out they weren't that bad.
I lived in the Boston area for about 20 yrs and these are very common in & around Boston so I was very used to them. Then I moved to Detroit and in a few areas, they were ‘introduced’ - ugh! A lot of people just didn’t understand the simple concept and they became some of the highest accident areas. It’s gotten much better but you’ll still get those few who left their brain at home.
I'm from Italy, here roundabouts are very common, they're everywhere! And there would be even more but most roads here are narrow and there's no room to build one. In a town near here (Romano ďEzzelino) there's a roundabout with a small wine yard in the middle! Others have sculptures, monuments, artistic installments and so on
When I was learning to drive (back in the 80's) my instructor asked me if I had any concerns, I said Roundabouts. So...... My city has a ring road/bypass and every junction has a roundabout. I spent the next 2 hours traversing the 9 roundabouts. 37 approaches and exist later it was No Problem. In the UK we have Roundabout and 'traffic circles' which are also classified as roundabouts. Some are 3 lanes, one near me known as 'Pork Pie Island' has 6 entries/exits and 3 of those have traffic lights (mad right)..... No Problem! I have lived near this for the last 38 years and have never heard of an accident or fatality... EVER! Once people understand and get used to a conventional Roundabout then traffic lighted versions (traffic circles) aren't so big of a deal. Those who protest are doing this through ignorance and displaying resistance to 'change' which is madness. US visitors who drive in UK/Europe soon learn how simple they really are!
Hyde Park Corner is a case in point, a nightmare to navigate when it was a simple roundabout, but a breeze once the traffic lights were added. I think we are so used to them now and understand their simplicity, we don't get why others think they are a bad idea.
On top of being relatively safer than regular intersections with traffic lights, roundabouts don't require maintenance other than normal road maintenance, which is a big part of road taxes and such. They can't break down and aren't dependent on the power grid like traffic lights, which is going to be another hot potato in the near future if politicians don't get their shit straight.
Slightly off topic: It reminds me of the anti EV crowd with their, "how you gonna charge your car with no power?", argument. Considering that gas pumps work on electricity. . .
@@romystumpy1197 Don't overestimate it though. any money saved on infrastructure goes straight into a politician's pocket. When a government saves some tax money, it's not for the benefit of the people, it never is... I would honestly rather see the 'saved' money spent on some poor maintenance guy's relatively low wage than to see it disappear in the bottomless pit of a politician's pocket. And I really hate that I have to even say it, but it's the sad reality...
I feel so much safer at roundabouts. Even at a green light, I still feel a little hesitation in my mind, like "what if someone doesn't notice the red light." At a roundabout you pretty much always know what to expect.
I'm from the Netherlands and we use many roundabouts as well. In the +10 years of driving I've seen one tiny accident on a roundabout involving a bicycle while seeing tens of accidents on traffic light intersections. Especially the ones where straight and left turn have green at the same time. Good that US is finally catching up!
Here in Tallinn, Estonia we have quite a lot of 'em and I definitely prefer them over intersections. The only issue I often see is that the drivers on the roundabout sometimes don't signal that they're exiting, so you're left waiting for them but they suddenly get off the roundabout.
It takes me about 15-20 minutes to go to work and I drive through 8 of them. They are so much batter than traffic lights when installed at appropriate locations. They don't work well if you have too much traffic coming from a single direction.
I live in Italy and we have a lot of roundabouts and I love them. They're convenient, you don't have to stop and wait at the red light and only have to yield to traffic if there's any but often I can just go because there are no cars coming in the roundabout.
They sound daunting, but after experiencing a few they become second nature. I’ve been driving 50 years, and can count on one hand the number of bad experiences I’ve had.
As your video said, there are the most roundabouts in France. They are even present in small villages. Often due to lack of space due to the buildings, the trucks run into problems. And because of the much too short turn they have to make, they destroy the ashfall. Because the tires then rotate on 1 point. Tractor + trailers are only 12 meters long here, which also has to do with the road infrastructure. (Dutch living in France)
One more thing. People in Sweden dont know how to drive in a roundabout. When leaving it you should use the direction indicator to show other cars your intentions so they dont have to stop for no reason. This doesnt work for most of the time, irritating, but still it safer than an intersection.
Increasingly used in nz to keep traffic moving more safely. Very very common here. We have various sizes. Good signage REALLY matters. Knowing ahead of time how to navigate to your exit. Most confusion comes around using your indicators. Where to indicate...going in or going out
They didn't use to be that common where I live (Italy), but during the years most intersection around here have been slowly converted to roundabouts and it's waaay better. To me it feels weird now when I have to stop to a traffic light
I'm from Germany and i like them really much. I think the traffic is running much smoother with roundabouts. We have one special in Karlsruhe, which we call "deadcircle", because it is a roundabout with two lanes, traffic lights and a tram track :D
Here in Australia. There are several things we are required to do on our driving tests to receive our licence. 1. Parallel park 2. Do a hill start 3. Drive correctly through a roundabout. Not giving way to other vehicles is an immediate fail.
Croatia is the same BUT a lot harder. I got mine first try BUT we are known as the hardest country to get a drivers licence (and most expensive). We have to drive a number of hours with an instructor (don't remember exact number but it's around 60) and then we get a test where an outside "examiner" (not sure if there's a direct translation) drives with you and your instructor in the back seat. You can pick if you want him to tell you your mistakes as you make them or at the end of the test. You drive for 15-45min depending on how good you're at it while he watches your every move. If you don't check your blind spot, rear view mirror and the back mirror (the one at the middle of the car) when making a lane change you fail. Changing lanes over full white line = fail. Only thing they let you repeat is parking and if your car stalls. You also have one chance of correcting your parking job while parking forwards and 2 chances while reverse parking. There's also a polygon that you do before getting on the road. Accelerating to 60km/h then braking to stop at the exact spot and driving in reverse in an S motion around the cones. I still don't know how I managed to pass it first time since that old Peugeot 206 I was driving had problematic pedals. Instructor also has control over your gas, clutch and brake and my gas was getting stuck at around 10-15%. I figured it out few days before my test and told my instructor to pull backwards on his pedal if he notices high revs while the car is stopped :D Dunno how it works in Australia but here we have driving schools that have their own cars and instructors. 1st you have to pass a written test ($250) then 1st aid ($100-ish) then driving test (around $800 covering the driving you do and the test itself). ('murican dolars) If you fail your driving test too many times you have to take the written test again. I think that it's 8 times but I'm not 100% sure. Fun fact about driving test and roundabouts... in my town there's so only one trafic light intersection, if they remove it the town won't be able to have a driving schools. We have a lot of roundabouts tho.
@@error262 Almost exactly the same here. We have training schools here but you are NOT required to use them, but you must have a licenced driver with you @ all times for "L" & curfew for "P" plater's. But the prices are a little cheaper here, not significantly though. We are required to use government inspectors for our licence tests from our version of road & vehicle registration regulator (each state calls them slightly different things). We also have "levels", "L" (learner) for the above, then red "P" (provisional), then green "P". Minimum of 3 years to get a full licence. Each "level" gets more rights, but ALL have a 0.00 alcohol limit. Also the rules are slightly different in each state, some have maximum speed of 90km/hr for some, then 100km/hr for others and 110km/hr for the rest. So if you get your licence in one state & travel to the next you can instantly lose your licence.
Please please check out “The Magic Roundabout” in Swindon, England. I took my driving test there and was made to cross it TWICE! (Still passed) It’s a group of SIX interlinked roundabouts and is one of the few instances where you can effectively circumnavigate it “the wrong way round” by going round anticlockwise at the outside edge. It has surprisingly few accidents considering its complexity. Here in Canada I really miss roundabouts for exactly the reasons mentioned here and find that when I do come across them, most of the drivers on the road clearly don’t know how to interact with them correctly. Cue lots of people stopping when they shouldn’t, indicating poorly or not at all, not giving way when they should be, etc. One of the aspects that people overlook too is that the UK’s roundabouts work so well partly because they’re extremely well signposted well in advance, are well lit at night, have clear line markings, etc. roundabouts here in North America typically have none of those things.
I’m French and I used to be sick of roundabouts in my youth because we have so many in France. I means « 14 roundabouts on a 25 miles commute» many. (from Crest to Romans-sur-Isere if you wanna count them) Now that I live in Canada I miss roundabouts so much. I often cross an intersection thinking that a roundabout would be nice at that place. We have a few ones in Quebec but they are so not mainstream that there no norm on how to go through. Each roundabout is kind of different.
Three things are necessary for Roundabouts to function well: 1. Concentration 2. Focus 3. Courtesy I should imagine that those protesting the installation of Roundabouts in their cities, don't like to do any of those things ;-)
I'm from Sweden. Here Roundabouts are rather common. Only on the outbacks or countryside you find intersections (without traffic lights), or in some dense old cultural cities where its impossible to fit a roundabout. But they try. Here it is considered the optimal "intersection". And most people has to test-drive thrue them to get a driving license. Cheers
I live in Italy. In the last 20 years I’ve seen traffic lights disappear in favor of roundabouts. In the beginning a lot of people were annoyed…but know I think no one want to coming back because no one like waiting for the green light!. Everytime i see a traffic light it seem a strange thing from the past. Often i drive in Berlin where there are still a lot of traffic light in the city and you know what? I find them really really annoying..
It's funny how that one person said they didn't like roundabouts, simply because they were afraid of missing their turn and ending up going round the roundabout 2 or 3 times.. Like, please, if you cross an intersection going straight but then realize you had to turn left and thus missed your exit, you will quite literally have to drive down that entire road for who knows how long to eventually manage to turn around and get to the right exit again, which takes so much longer than going around a roundabout another time..
I'm from the UK, and we love roundabouts. Even some roundabouts have roundabouts, like in Swindon. Living in Hong Kong we have quite a few roundabouts here too, and generally speaking they're quite good, but some people don't understand they are supposed to yield to oncoming traffic. That bit about learner drivers not having to deal with roundabouts just reminded me of something else. In the UK there has been a recent change in instruction where students have to drive on the motorway/highway. Previously students were not supposed to be on those, but as you can imagine the first time they get to drive on one would be after they earn their license, which can be quite a stressful experience. This is why it was changed. Is that the case in the US as well?
Here, in Indonesia, intersections with traffic lights are more common than roundabouts, those roundos can commonly be found in a city and there'll be some sort of statue or something in the middle, so we have both lights and roundos, while it is true that roundabouts can be quite confusing, all it takes is just to learn how it works, learn the rules (yield to incoming traffic, which lane to be in, when to change lanes, etc.), practice navigating it a couple of times, and everything's good.
Jakarta also used to have traffic circles, though it looks like they've been changed since the busway went in (Selamat Datang Monument and Patung Pemuda Membangun come to mind). Jakarta is probably the best proof that roundabouts are better, you look at areas like PIK that has lots of roundabouts and traffic flows quite well and compare to Pluit where traffic can be awful, so if roundabouts can improve traffic flow in Jakarta they can work anywhere.
Here in Denmark we also have tons of roundabouts, and i would say that it’s true that they generally are a lot safer and faster. One small negative I can think of, is if you have a relatively small roundabout that’s really congested, the windows of opportunity to get into the roundabout can become really small. Hence why they can cause a headache for especially learners, and new drivers here as well. However that knowledge comes quick with experiences, to where it becomes easy to spot a window of opportunity. But even then, being quick off the line shouldn’t be a problem in America anyway, since you love your automatics so much.
My city in the UK is almost entirely composed of roundabouts, laid out grid style, but a roundabout at almost every intersection of the main roads, it works pretty well.
Out in the Phoenix valley, roundabouts are pretty rare. The only one I can think of on a main road is Main Street/Horne in Mesa, which also has the light rail line running through it. It seems strange that they aren't more common along Main Street, as the city could probably save a lot on the intersections, as every intersection where a road crosses the light rail line seems to require either a roundabout or a traffic light. I can understand the intersections west of Country Club Drive not getting roundabouts, as roundabouts tend to fail with high traffic volumes, or on the intersection of Main Street/Center Street, as there's a station right on the intersection, though the other intersections along the line could get that treatment.
This sounds like the same objections we had here in Belgium in the early nineties and now roundabouts are omnipresent. As are speedbumps by the way. Love to hear the Americans react to that 🙂
Australian here, got plenty of roundabouts spotted here and there, on my commute to work I purposefully take the route with roundabouts vs stoplights, my only dislike about them is quite a lot of people don’t care to indicate at all or indicate to go around and turn off, leaving you sitting there giving way to the car behind them that was going around, ensuring you just missed your chance to enter the roundabout safely 🤦🏼♂️ please indicate properly everyone!! And drive safely 🤙🏼 no point getting anywhere quickly if the speed ends up making sure you don’t get there at all
In some pedestrian areas like malls here in Germany they tend to build „roundabouts“ even for pedestrians. In the world of right hand traffic people tend to go a circle counter clockwise. So they use „round“ floors around staircases and order the escalators in a way that you have to go half a circle to get to the next escalator. It even improves the flow when walking.
Loads of them in Australia, I remember the first on appearing when I was a kid 30+ years ago. But unfortunately some people still don’t know how to use them here. It’s a give way/yield not a stop sign but people stop when cars are on the other side of the roundabout 🤦🏼♂️🤣 even when I was in Scotland we had a massive one in the town and they decided to put traffic lights on it, it took a little while for most people to get used to it, still a few idiots but there will always be those 🤣🤣
And its give way to first entered which was to keep traffic flowing(in Victoria anyway) , yet most drivers coming from your right will just fly through in a line of 10 before you get a chance to enter so you end up just being at a stop and give way intersection
It’s because the average American cannot drive. In the UK or Europe where there are multiple roundabouts, every single citizen has the choice of whether to become a driver or to rely on public transport if they don’t have the necessary skills to drive. In the US there is no public transit system, so every man and his dog needs to know how to drive. And that includes people who should never be behind the wheel… Those who should be relying on public transport, but simply cannot. If you take anybody with a drivers license out of Europe or the UK and plant them in America they will be able to drive just fine. But if you take the average driver out of America and plant them in Europe they would be hopelessly lost and would not be able to perform the task. It’s a matter of skill sets. American roads are designed for the poorest skilled driver.
It would be way easier to introduce roundabouts if attaining a drivers license in the US would take more hours/classes and young drivers would be taught how to use roundabouts properly. In most European countries you have to take a lot more hours than in the US and my personal experience is that drivers in the US are just not trained enough. An American Highway is just a mess where for example drivers purposefully ignore the concept of a passing lane.
I’m in Western Australia and we have lots of roundabouts! I have 2 small ones within 200 metres of my house. We have residential ones that are great for busy intersections which would usually have Stop or Give Way signs.
In the Netherlands roundabouts are widely used. But even those intersections that use lights, they are fitted with sensors in the roads and so lights in lanes where there is no traffic will stay red and those that see lots of traffic will turn green more often and stay green longer. When you approach an intersection and there is no traffic in other lanes, your light will turn green even before you come to a full stop.
