At an intersection- which is better a round about or stop light?

Personally, I like traffic lights better because they’re straightforward: red means stop, green means go. But once you get the hang of a roundabout, yield, pick your lane, go it can keep traffic moving smoother.
 

Well, IMHO roundabouts are great.....for seeing whose paying attention. There are two which I traveled often. At the beginning, one had a wreck a week, the other 2-3 times a week. Once a 4 car pile up.

That was caused by someone going left instead of right and CRUNCH!

After 6 months, things settled down. The drawback was that the two roundabouts sped up flow, right into a 1 lane intersection, with mandatory right turn lane.

So backups were 20-35 cars....
 
I've been using the roundabout for a while. Ours was poorly thought out. Most roundabouts connect 3-4 streets. Ours connects 4 streets, but on the roundabout itself are 2 pharmacies, a bank and a store. So in a short space are 8 exits and 8 entrances. So people are getting into the left lane to get into the right lane only a few feet away. And for most Americans, roundabouts area rare thing, thye don't have much experience with them.
 
They put in a roundabout at a near intersection that had a red light. The intersection was famous for long lines of cars trying to get through it. The roundabout was supposed to remove that congestion.
So what did they do- just before you get to the congestion saving roundabout, they installed red lights.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
They put in a roundabout at a near intersection that had a red light. The intersection was famous for long lines of cars trying to get through it. The roundabout was supposed to remove that congestion.
So what did they do- just before you get to the congestion saving roundabout, they installed red lights.
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Too many people in this country think the rule is give way to the right but in this state at least it is give way to traffic already on the roundabout.

Roundabouts are fine as long as the traffic is not heavy or biased in one direction. There is one roundabout near me with a traffic light which only turn on if someone is waiting at a particular junction and can't get on to the roundabout because continuous traffic from other directions stops them.

My main objection to small suburban roundabouts is that they remove a right that pedestrians once had to cross the road.

As for the UK they have far too many roundabouts some places have them at every junction, when I was visiting they drove me up the wall. They even have them as a white circle just painted on the road, absolutely ridiculous
 
Tommy said:
Different applications for different situations. I'm also familiar with a third option.

In Detroit (a section of Gratiot Avenue, maybe?) there's a section of divided highway with traffic lights. No left turns are permitted at the lights. Instead, there are long "reverse direction" lanes. To turn left, you actually go through the intersection, reverse direction (heading back to the intersection), then turn right. It actually works very well and, without any left turners, the lights are much more efficient. :)
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Remind me not to leave New England. If I made it to Detroit, and it's Gratiot Ave., I might never be found again!o_O
 
Aunt Bea said:
We have a couple of fast moving roundabouts here and IMO they are dangerous only because people aren’t used to them.

It’s the same with the etiquette of a four way stop. It seems like people look for a little hesitation on the part of other drivers and take a shot.

For me, a traffic light is best.
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Tell you what Aunt Bea, I can offer you both. Just click on Canford Bottom Roundabout and you will see a six junction roundabout, traffic light controlled, with the main dual carriageway cutting right through the centre. It was constructed in time for the olympics in 2012, and we have lived with the legacy of it ever since.
 
DaveA said:
I'm familiar with the term "round-about" but in my little corner of New England I hear the term "traffic circle" far more often.
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Since moving to northern New England 35 years ago, I think I've heard "rotary" most frequently but all three names seem to be used here. Growing up in Michigan I had only heard of "traffic circles". Never saw one there though. :rolleyes:
 
Here again is the newest one in our neck of the woods, in action now that it is fully completed and operational.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/1kce7lg

Being retired we don't have to regularly be in huge commute traffic on I-80 leading toward the Eastbay Bridge to San Francisco. But coming back from walking the dogs at Pt Isabel dog park we frequently are on 580 which connects to San Rafael in the Northbay. Our route would be in the direction the video goes at the beginning, from North to South. By taking the frontage road exit immediately after functioning from 580 to 80 we can just zip along the frontage road while 80 becomes a parking lot. We just stay to the outside of that double lane circle.
 
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We have lots of them in Massachusetts. We call them rotaries. There was one busy intersection where over the years they tried everything, Two way stops, four way stops, traffic lights. Then they put in a roundabout and problem solved. There is another spot where five really busy roads intersect and there has been a rotary there forever.

It's a nightmare, I have seen people miss a turn and then they backed up in the rotary instead of going around again. It is huge and tourists have no idea how to use it. The state keeps trying to figure out how to fix it but it is almost impossible to do anything else. It was designed with a rotary in mind and we are stuck with it. So I guess it depends on the situation.
 
The only time I encountered a roundabout was in Brattleboro, VT. A bit strange and uncomfortable, but perhaps in a small rural town it could be preferable to having normal intersections with stop signals.
 

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