Shame NJ is busy ripping all theirs out (and replacing them with horrible circle/stop hybrids that are the worst of both)
Shame NJ is busy ripping all theirs out (and replacing them with horrible circle/stop hybrids that are the worst of both)
Plus you can drift a roundabout if needed
One thing that their test didn't take into account is that many drivers don't know the rules/etiquette to handle a 4-way stop. At least once a day I see someone who has the right of way sit there and try to wave others thru which slows down the traffic flow drastically. I think that in actual traffic situations the difference might even be greater.
In reply to Hal:
It's even worse at a roundabout. There's one in my town. I avoid it at all costs, knowing it'll put my berkeleying blood pressure through the roof. "THIS COULD BE SO EFFICIENT IF YOU HAD ANY berkeleyING CLUE WHAT YOU WERE DOING. AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!"
There 4 way stop did seem very efficient from what you normally see. Just today I had some lady give me the "what the heck" wave when I would not turn left in front of her because she was turning left also. Well excuse me, how the hell am I supposed to know you are turning left IF YOU DON'T SIGNAL!!!
I wonder if how the traffic travels makes a difference (I am SURE it would with the directed intersection). I don't know if they found the averages and used them but I would suspect a good 75% of the traffic at any intersection is straight through.
Also of note is that in low traffic situations, a roundabout would save a LOT of gas / time since you don't have to stop (is that correct? I don't have a lot of experience with typical roundabouts).
Roundabouts do take up a bit more room though, so they would be pretty hard to retrofit most places.
We have a number of round-rounds in MI. They were rough for the first few months, but 90+% of the drivers know how to handle them now. I dig 'em.
I go through 5 roundabouts to leave/get to my house daily. People dont understand how to use them. They always stop at the "Yield" sign, even when there are no other cars, it really irritates me.
On the other hand, if I happen to be coming home late at night, they are a lot of fun.
DrBoost wrote: We have a number of round-rounds in MI. They were rough for the first few months, but 90+% of the drivers know how to handle them now. I dig 'em.
This ^^^
BTW, if you talk to traffic engineers, they do not measure the efficiency of an intersection based on the test that Mythbusters used.
They use a measure based on the requirement the probability that a car can pass through an intersection without stopping.
Roundabout - 0.66
Signalized Intersection - 0.33
4-way stop - 0.0
The sign says berkeleying "YIELD" not "STOP", WTF is your problem? Arrrguh!
Worst stopped person at a roundabout I have ever experienced was the little old lady who sat there for-e-ver waiting for it to be clear for her to turn left. facepalm
The problem is people don't signal that they are leaving the roundabout so I can enter it. I have to wait until I see they are exiting before I can enter. Most people just floor it if they have even a minute space, but I drive a slow truck that can't get out of it's own way.
In reply to moparman76_69:
We have a bunch of them around here, and now that people know what to do, they work very efficiently.
Love the roundaboot.
I'm liking the traffic circles, drop down a gear and go for it! 
yes, NJ is busy ripping them out as fast as they can due to the large amount of tourists we have. While natives can navigate them easily enough, as soon as a tourist approaches one, all hell breaks out and traffic grinds to a halt
Wisconsin has been putting round abouts in a lot recently. It works for me most times I drive at light traffic times and don't have to stop and with many vehicles I don't slow down either. Many people here complain about them but it's mostly because people can't figure them out. There are those who can't figure out 4 ways either.
Rotaries work great here in Massachusetts until you get someone with RI, Ct, or NY plates heading down to the cape approach one.
From personal experience, if you are turning left at a roundabout and decide to take an extra lap around it you may want to check for parked police cars first.
mad_machine wrote: yes, NJ is busy ripping them out as fast as they can due to the large amount of tourists we have. While natives can navigate them easily enough, as soon as a tourist approaches one, all hell breaks out and traffic grinds to a halt
Have you been through the absolute clusterberkeley that replaced the Berlin circle in NJ? I don't know what the "traffic engineer" who designed that thing was smoking but it was some good E36 M3.
JThw8 wrote:mad_machine wrote: yes, NJ is busy ripping them out as fast as they can due to the large amount of tourists we have. While natives can navigate them easily enough, as soon as a tourist approaches one, all hell breaks out and traffic grinds to a haltHave you been through the absolute clusterberkeley that replaced the Berlin circle in NJ? I don't know what the "traffic engineer" who designed that thing was smoking but it was some good E36 M3.
that confused the hell out of me the first time I went through it...
The "airport circle" I live close to is another clusterberkeley. It is still a circle, with traffic lights and the main road goes straight through the middle.. however, the main traffic problems come from the airport and FAA Tech centre there.. and they do not have a light, so traffic backs up 2 miles to their gate while the people at the front still have to dart into traffic when they get the chance.
Funny thing is.. it is even more unsafe than the original circle, the accident rate has near doubled
Watching with bated breath, recently a lot of roundabouts have been built near me, including replacing intersections.
Edit: Aw dammit the roundabout has only one lane, this doesn't help me!
Edit2: Huh the single-lane roundabout won anyway. I'd like to see a comparison under heavy traffic though. Get more participants and give them points for the number of times they get through the roundabout, with big prizes for the top 3.
There are two roundabouts that I am aware of in this giant city of 6 million. Not a good ratio for anybody understanding how to use them. One of them is a couple miles from my house and I use it every day. At the very least, a sign telling you which way you need to go BEFORE you enter the roundabout (as they do in England, etc.) would eliminate a lot of confusion. I drive very defensively through that thing as I've had a number of incidents where someone swings over from one lane to the other right at me when they realize they need to pass an exit.
The video left out a number of advantages to roundabouts that made them so common in Europe, as well. For example, they only compared them to 4 way stops. The Europeans use them instead of traffic lights, which eliminates all that infrastructure and maintenance for lights. Also, in areas where the roads grew up from cart tracks and tend to spider web it allows several roads to intersect at one place without a clusterberkeley of traffic lights, intermediary junctions, etc.
Slippery wrote: I go through 5 roundabouts to leave/get to my house daily. People dont understand how to use them. They always stop at the "Yield" sign, even when there are no other cars, it really irritates me. On the other hand, if I happen to be coming home late at night, they are a lot of fun.
my 98 Cavalier with crap tires would do 40 around the one that i sometimes go thru. one of the benefits of getting off of work at 4am.. i keep saying i'm going to try to beat that record with my Camaro, but there's always a cop in the area when i drive that car thru it..
but, yeah, no one knows how to use it. the older people think they need to stop, the younger people think they never have to yield. i once saw a very confused and scared looking elederly lady in a mid 90's Buick Century almost get wiped out by a 3/4 ton pickup because she turned left onto it to get to the interstate (she was probably coming from the hospital).
it's been there for about 16 months now, and people still don't know how to drive on the damn thing- which isn't surprising, since the interstate has been there for 40+ years and they still don't know how to merge onto and drive on that yet, either.
New York has a new found love with those things. I used to get off I-87 at Exit 12 until they put in five of those in a row. Last year they put two just 3 miles south and there are plans to put two at Exit 11, replacing a side street T stop.
Cops say there are the same number of fender benders but they happen at a slower speed.
They can work well, if properly designed. My state has a hard time with the proper designing of them. From many being too small for a semi to actually go around, to having stop signs on them, mixed bicycle lanes in them, and some awful multi-laned crossover types.
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