Some info to start with
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout
Learn about Raindrop and Turbo roundabouts or
Hamburger roundabout/throughabout/cut-through roundabout
or maybe "Ring Junctions"
Some interesting stats from an interested party
www.123-cam.com/live-webcam.php?var=http://www.roundabouts.ca/orc_webcam.htm
A museum!
www.ourston.com/index.php?id=91
Wiki says "Half of the world's roundabouts are in France (over 30,000 as of 2008)". Oh dear I thought we had the most!
I like roundabouts for ease of understanding and safety even though my local version is the well known Scilly Isles roundabout by Esher.
I can only recall ( many years ago) one proper roundabout being installed and then reverting to a cross roads.
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I hate roundabouts with a passion and i find that these days some people come round them so fast they don’t give you time to do your manoeuvre.
I also hate roundabouts where you have to swap lanes halfway through, and I don’t think roundabouts work with large volumes of traffic, as you have to sit and queue to get on it for ages sometimes.
No I don’t like roundabouts at all. – but I don’t have a logical alternative
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We had a 5 way roundabout which worked well with very few holdups. One day the council's traffic management felt the need to justify their existence. We now have a 3 way in, 5 way out roundabout with enough traffic lights to light up Blackpool. Fifteen sets, OK that includes pedestrian crossings on the roundabout, but they all contribute to the confusion, some sets are feet apart as the pedestrian crossing stop lights and traffic stop lights are separate. And you guessed it we now have huge holdups.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Wed 14 Apr 10 at 09:22
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Reading Borough Council are adept at similar cock-ups, Old Navy.
A particularly good example is the replacement of a roundabout on the A33 Relief Road with a set of dangerous traffic lights which cause more congestion than existed before with the roundabout.
Locals will know where I mean.......
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Yes, the Scilly Isles can be a bit daunting to those new to the area, but yes, I agree, roundabouts are the most effective way of dealing with a cross roads/junction. If there are accidents they are relatively low speed (compared to a convetnional cross-roads) and you never have to wait long, unless it is completely overwhelmed by weight of traffic.
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>>I hate roundabouts with a passion and i find that these days some people come round them >>so fast they don’t give you time to do your manoeuvre.
Yes, I've noticed this too. Some drivers seem to think that although they have (the normal) right of way, that another vehicle even attempting to join in their eyeline/horizon is somehow, in flagrante - and some get upset by this.
Although I observe the general rule that you don't cause another vehicle to alter speed or change direction, I've noticed some drivers 'speeding up' to get on your bumper if you have the temerity to 'nip in' like this. These types also tend to think any vehicle coming from the right shouldn't have to be driven with due care & courteousness, as you would for example, when approaching a car from behind being driven more slowly.
Last edited by: kensitas on Wed 14 Apr 10 at 10:24
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Roundabouts work well with light or moderate traffic, but in heavy traffic they work to the disadvantage of a car trying to join from a "minority" direction, because of the give-way to the right rule.
I think the previous rule, of no particular priority, might work better, or perhaps a "allow one car in only" rule. The same might be applied at T-junctions too.
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in my area there is a roundabout that has filter lanes.
this allows drivers to skip the roundabout (when turning left).
the only downside to this is that the filter lane ends just after the roundabout.
So any cars comming off the roundabout have to give way to traffic merging from the filter lane on the left.
I am unsure who has right of way at the end of the filter lane.
Does traffic on the filterlane have right of way or does the traffic leaving the roundabout have right of way ?
For me I just do the curtesy thing and allow one car at a time to merge in from the filter lane.
heres the rounabout in question :-
tinyurl.com/y4y9nds (link to google maps shortened to restore page width)
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 14 Apr 10 at 12:20
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Just an update.
I checked the online highway code and nothing seems to exist for filter lane laws .
How odd.
So how do drivers treat filter lanes ?
who has right of way ?
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>> >> I checked the online highway code and nothing seems to exist for filter lane laws
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tinyurl.com/2jhjdt
Does this tell you what you want to know?
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not really.
I did read that section of the highway code, but could not find anything specific for filter lanes.
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Odd that France is said to have the most roundabouts - they adopted them long after everyone else.
Maybe that's why there is still quite dangerous confusion over them because there are two sets of rules. Outside town centres you give way when entering the roundabout in the 'normal' way. But in many town and city centres the traffic entering the roundabout has priority and vehicles already on it have to give way. The complication is something wonderful to watch (as long as you aren't involved).
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There is nothing finer than the neat and speedy use of a roundabout in traffic... I love them.
And large ones when it's deserted are a dream handling test area.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Wed 14 Apr 10 at 12:18
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It's the mini roundabouts that I dislike. Often there's someone waiting at each entrance and no-one quite knows who's got right of way. Roundabouts would be far, far more efficient if people bothered to indicate correctly or at all when they use them.
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Some years ago we were on holiday on Orkney. A mini roundabout had just been installed in Kirkwall (the very first) & instructions on how to use it were printed in the local paper. The locals were obviously unused to it & would wait longer than necessary - less of a problem for me!
Tony
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I like roundabouts too. But only we and our froggy cousins really understand them.
Mini-roundabouts are fine too, but only as an indicator of priority for cars approaching the thing, if their drivers are signalling correctly, and of course if they aren't pathetic twozzers just out of the nursery who try to drive all the way round them instead of taking their correct course which is often straight over them and may sometimes even be on the wrong side of them.
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I'm with Alanovic and I know where he means in Reading. He'll probably also know that particularly obnoxious set of Labour-controlled traffic lights by the Royal Berks Hospital which go red as soon as any pedestrian pushes the button. (I'm not bring anti-pedestrian but they can take their turn.)
Basingstoke may not be at the top of anyone's hit parade but generally the traffic keeps going there, as there are lots of roundabouts and fewer traffic lights.
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(I'm not bring anti-pedestrian but they
>> can take their turn.)
There's a School Crossing Warden round the corner from me who works a busy rush hour T junction.
She's out in the road with the old lollipop up if she so much as sees a child within 200 yds.
Seems to have no conception at all of traffic flow and regularly grid-locks the whole place up.
I've no problem with these people who do a good job in all weathers, but there's absolutely no reason why a couple of kids can't be made to wait for 30 seconds or so while the traffic sorts itself out !
Ted
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Roundabouts are a great invention. As are traffic lights. I just wish they would stop combining the two together, which invariably leads to disaster.
I cannot think of one traffic light controlled roundabout which doesn't flow better when the lights pack up.
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Worse than that DP, there's a roundabout I know at the south end of Dorking on the A24 which has a pedestrian crossing light at its entrance. Approaching traffic can easily mistake this for a traffic light and blind into the roundabout when something's coming from the right. Came within a whisker of being caught like that myself when this stupid feature first appeared. As we passed it night before last my wife, a very careful driver, said: 'I wonder how many accidents that's caused so far?'
Surrey of course. Worst traffic planners on the planet. I would have said outside London, but the carphounds in London do it on purpose I think, unlike the golf-playing, tartan-hat-wearing excrement birds of Surrey.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Thu 15 Apr 10 at 15:55
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Roundabouts. I like them. - Redviper
