Why the "traffic circle" will never catch on ...

'Cuz we don't expect to see them here in America. Here, a van has failed to negotiate the Greater Metropolitan Odenton Beltway. Inner Loop, Outer Loop ... It doesn't matter. They're just REALLY HARD to navigate through.
Apparently.

Cory,
Why does the guy have the ladder out of the van? Seems rather odd... OH NOT - I JUST LOST CONTROL IN A TRAFFIC CIRCLE AND DRIVEN INTO THE CENTER!! Hey, I know, I'll exit the vehicle, go to the passenger side, open the door, climb up and take my ladder down. You never know when you might need a ladder...

So all teasing aside, what's the "rest of the story?"

angela

He just wanted to see if he could possible get any HIGHER! Funny how it always ends up that drugs or alcohol are involved.

New Jersey was well known for it's dangerous traffic circles, a few small ones still remain in South Jersey..but the one that comes to mind was in Ledgewood NJ
1969 after a Friday night HS basketball game I was on the way home with a car full of friends, decide to be a smart ass and did 25 tire squealing laps around the circle.
Moments after the good officer pulled me over he asked "WTH did I think was I doing?"
Just before he wrote the ticket............"Just driving around".
I said.

No drugs or alcohol. Simply lost his brakes.
Anybody wanna take a shot at a funny caption?

Whoa.... is me, not.

"some good all-season tires might have helped"

"A van for all seasons"

i know the driver his name is..
Ivan Roundabout

Traffic circles are becoming a popular traffic management solution in Oregon. It seems there is always one retard who doesn't know how to navigate one and either fails to yield or yields when he should go. There is a four-way stop near my house that is very busy at commute times but not so much the rest of the day. Instead of installing signals, the local government is going to acquire a bunch of surrounding land, re-route the roadway, and build a traffic circle. I'd love to read the analysis that led to this fix.

Stayed in Mexico City at the Maria Isabel Hotel overlooking the traffic circle surrounding
the beautiful statue of the Angel of Independence. After a morning of activity and leisurely lunch usually a light rain would fall. Then we would take a drink onto the balcony and watch the destruction derby below as hundreds of VW taxis raced down Paseo de la Reforma sliding into and around the traffic circle and each other. Great entertainment for no added room service charges.

ever been to the "Arc de Triomphe dans Paris"?

insane!

http://vivh.com/images/s_fran9.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/Traffic_seen_from_top_of_Arc_de_Triomphe.JPG/800px-Traffic_seen_from_top_of_Arc_de_Triomphe.JPG

Try cruising thru Long Beach Ca on the Pacific Coast Highway (101). There's been a major circle on it for as long as I can remember and I'm 62.
Roy knows what I'm talkin' about. BTH,Roy I've made a few laps around the one in Mexico City also.

Ernie, just saw yesterday that the Long Beach traffic circle was re-signed as a "round about".
Fortunately there is a hospital on the bluff above. (though I think it's ER is closed now)
Perhaps the new signage would have conveyed some understanding to the two (by then) quadriplegic bikers I once hauled there after they attempted bisecting the circle. But I doubt it.

Hey Ernie -

Speaking of the LB traffic circle - was that YOU I saw at the Cinammon Cinder club ('67)LOL? BTW - in '68 bought my first of many VWs at Circle VW; a new VW bug for $1,900. I was freaking-out about where-in-the-hell was I going to get $90/mo for the car payments?


...and now back to your regularly scheduled thread...

Cinammon Cinder.. Now there's a blast from the past!
Actually you probably saw me a little south of there at "The Clubhouse" sloppin' beer with the LB State crowd in '69-'70. I was close enough to ride over there on my 10 speed!
I wonder if "The Circle" drive-in theater is still there.

"Lost his brakes..."

Gonna have to run the bull$hit flag up the pole on that one. Wish I could tell you how many people swear their brakes failed on dead flat ground. Funny thing is when you move the vehicle, wa-la, the brakes work fine.

Personally, I'm all for post-accident single vehicle mandatory drug/alcohol testing. No other vehicles involved? Then you are normally either asleep, high or driving with your head up your rectum. We can eliminate one of these possibilities with a good post-accident drug/alcohol test. Further, if you test positive for a schedule 1 drug - you get a two-fer deal. You go to jail for deuce and for possession.

I know...I'm a jerk.

angela

I took my family to the World Police and Fire games last year in Australia and afterwards headed to Christchurch, New Zealand. We rented an Rv and headed south. I could not make any turns for about 10 km because there were so many traffic circles and in the oppposite direction. After several attemps I finally made a turn pulled over, took a break and looked at my hands to make sure I knew which was left and right. Throughout this fun trip I still tried to make "normal" turns good thing my wife was alert!

They added three traffic circles in Pacific Beach (San Diego) last year. They call them "traffic calming" circles, and just to be sure, they added a bunch of low traction cobblestone all the way around. At least the curbs are sort of rounded on top, but they are all ready covered by black tire marks everywhere.

Interestingly, these are supposed to be two lane streets, but there are no traffic lanes marked inside the circles. I've noticed that most traffic tends to drive around in the middle of the lane, just to keep all their turning options open I suppose.

Geeez.....I dunno....we've had "Rotaries" in New England for as long as I can remember. They've only become a problem with the influx of the high tech crowd from elsewhere in the country who don't fully understand that there are a few rules associated with manoeuvering through them:

1. Ambulances and Fire Trucks have the right to blast through Rotaries un-molested. This seems to be a given in most countries I've visited, Thailand being an exception (never quite figured that place out). Police vehicles come in #2, and are grudgingly allowed to pass after the traffic stops directly in their way, and then grudgingly moves ever slightly to let them pass.

2. "The Law of Gross Tonnage" takes precedence at all other times. This means that he or she who has the larger (most important), heavier vehicle can barge through the rotary whilst neither looking left nor right, for what the hell do they care? They're bigger than you and they know it! Boaters (especially sailors) seem to grasp this simple fact far easier than the rest of the driving populace, probably from coming up against a container ship (notoriously piloted by Indonesians who seem to have invented this law, along with several descriptive gestures associated with it) or some snot-nosed, power yacht driver who was also familiar with said law.

3. Buses are (grudgingly) given way in most states outside of New England and that other "state" to the far West, Los Angeles County. In those places, buses must compete for Rotary space with all others, while their drivers seem to be in a constant state of wide-eyed panic as they enter and exit the rotary traffic. Of course, LA County doesn't have any "Rotaries", right? Hard to tell - they're probably gridlocked all of the time).

4. Experienced Drivers entering a Rotary (especially in the Greater Boston area) have developed "The State of the Intense Stare", whereby they fix their gaze on the point of exit before entering the Rotary traffic and keep their eyes glued to that exact spot while blindly entering the traffic stream (Hopefully they have also been students of "The Law of Gross Tonnage" and understand its' importance) and totally ignore the horn-blowing and gestures bestowed given to us by the enlightened, Indonesian members of the driving force. These seem to be the most efficient drivers, since they seem to enter the traffic stream smoothly and exit quickly, although typically causing other drivers to often miss their entrance or exit tangents, causing them to make additional laps of the Rotary to re-align with their desired exit ramp. Obviously, those drivers must re-acquaint themselves with "The Law of Gross Tonnage", above.

As an interesting side bar, Massachusetts and, I believe, New Hampshire (the "Live Free or Die" state) both had a traffic law for decades which stated that, upon entering an intersection, the car to the right had the right of way (usually meaning that the car to the right could proceed first).

Now....think about this with a Rotary; If one believes, as our faire Commonwealth's Law-Givers did, that Rotary traffic was sacrosanct and should not be messed with, then the "Right Hand Rule" as it was then known, must be dealt with, and swiftly. Therefore, they decreed that "traffic already within the Rotary has the right of way", meaning that those entering a Rotary (and they're always on the right, unless you're driving in England, Ireland, Austrailia, New Zealand or Japan, where things are a tiny bit different) must wait for an opening in the traffic before proceeding into the Rotary traffic stream (yes, it does seem like a bunch of Salmon swimming in a whirlpool).

This change in traffic laws would have probably worked seamlessly, were it not for one small thing (well, two, maybe): (1.) They left the "Right Hand Rule" in place for all other intersections, leaving no small amount of confusion in the minds of many, many motorists and (2.) all of the "youth-challenged" motorists who had grown up with the "Right Hand Rule" during the 1940's never had to take an updated driving test, so they totally ignore the sanctity of Rotary Traffic Flow and simply barge in, knowing that they have the right of way and those dimwits out there in the Rotary have to stop for them.

I certainly hope that this clears up proper driver etiquette in the traversing of "Rotaries", also know as "Roundabouts", "Traffic Circles" and "Rings of Hell".

gn

Rotaries are poping up all over Howard County these days, w/ a new one about done just down the road. There is an intersection at US Rte 29 and MD 216 (the beautiful downtown Scaggsville) where in less than 1/2 a mile there are, I kid you not, THREE circles one after the other. Insanity. And I actually sort of like the basic idea. Traveling the backroads of Europe, you find them everywhere, and generally they work well. One important aspect for the often confused foriegn traveler was pointed out by my right-seater one time: if you can't figure out the signage, and so get cramped up trying to figure out where to turn off, just go around again until you get it. It works.

PS: Although the local HowCo troopers are located right off one of these circles, when the night is dark and the hour late, (read: the roads are empty) finding the right line and taking all three of these circles at speed is a very fun litle chicane (?) sort of thing.

DC has a giant rotary... it is called the beltway!

We have a fair amount of sometimes busy 4-way stops. Same Right-hand rule as other states, along with whoever got there first taking precedence. Rolling stops don't count unless you have a LARGE vehicle. I think there is just an overwhelming sense of me-first, rudeness, and cluelessness(is that a word?) on the road today.

When I visit Massachusie I go through rotaries easily, must have something to do with paying attention to actually doing one thing at a time: driving!

This thread just keeps going round and round......

BWAAAA HAAAAH HAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

There, someone had to say it.

When I lived in Honduras, there were very few Rotaries (I think Tegucigalpa, the capital, had a couple) but they more than made up for it with one-lane bridges over streams and rivers. BTW, drive 5 miles outside of the Capital and/or San Pedro Sula and all the roads were dirt Late 60's - they have five or six more paved roads now....)

The protocol for crossing a bridge with oncoming traffic was this:

Buses ALWAYS had the right of way. No matter if they were full of people/chickens/goats/pigs/whatever or just empty, they had the right of way and they knew it.

Anybody else had what appeared to be a single rule: Whoever flashed their headlights first and fastest for the longest duration of time (while still approaching the bridge at breakneck speed and lining up for a game of "Chicken") and intimidated the other drive more, won.

I was out in the country (Aldeas) with a guy in one of those little 2-cylinder Citroens that have bullfrog front fenders and I saw him intimidate a loaded lumber truck and win "first to pass".

Thought I was gonna have to shovel out my shorts......

OK, here is another one, as long as we are BSing old war stories. In the 70's I had a good opp'y to tour Europe and while in Zurich I noticed that for a relatively big city they had very few traffic lights. A great many really busy streets had uncontolled intersections: no stop signs, yeild signs or anything. The rule seemed to be: whoever arrived first had the right of way. As is true in most cases like this, once everyone knows the rules, it works sort of OK. Throw in a newbie foreign tourist, and I am here to tell you the system breaks down in a hurry. Timidity is not rewarded.

And . . . one of the truly amazing sights in Paris to look down on the traffic circle around the Arc d'Triumph from the top of same and watch what transpires. This circle is at least four and more likely six lanes wide, and I forget how many streets coming in. I spent a good while (1/2 an hour or more) topside and in that time there were at least three mishaps sufficient to have the parties stop and get out, and have the local gendarmie come over to help out. Apparently, it is a non-stop fender bender. Fortunately, there are tunnels under the thing to allow pedestrians to gain access to the Arc. I wonder if those tunnels were there from day One? Can't conceive of the confusion if there was a time when the tunnels were not present.

Doesn't seem where you go; Paris, Moscow or Mexico City (my favorite), Rotaries are a constant source of entertainment....

The only thing better is watching the shenanigans at any boat launch ramp!!

ANY male/female combination in the process of launching or pulling a boat out of the water is pure entertainment!

Come to think of it, this should be another thread!

Ditto the boat launch / retreive scenario Jim. That is better than watching scripted reality TV. I used to go down to the ramp on Sunday afternoons just to watch the fun. BUT, I earned the right to laugh at everyone the old fashioned way - I did all those crazy things at least once myself.
Left the plug out (more than once).
Let the tie downs on the boat while trying to launch.
Put the tail pipe underwater, stalling the car engine.
Backed the prop into the stone breakwater.
Impossible to steer a direct drive boat in reverse.
Couldn't maneuver into the dock.
Jump from boat to dock, or vice versa, lost balance, splash.
Cannot line boat up with trailer to retreive.
Can't back up the trailer, with or without a boat.
Conversation between ship and shore - priceless!

David - just thinking about it make me laugh!

In Denmark we have them all over the place. Good excuse to have a little tire squeeking speedster oversteer.
But the Brits can make anything complicated.
See this one in Swindon,UK. And then RHD also.

A bodyshops wet dream....

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=nl&q=swindon&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=51.562802,-1.770655&spn=0.002018,0.006073&t=h&om=1

I wouldn't try it in my Speedster but I'd give it a go in my beat toyota pickup, for sure it would survive. Unbelievable.

Holy Vertigo, Batman!! I see it but I don't believe it. Just follow the arrows . . . riiiiight.