Okay what's the point of Round Abouts?

Question

You know the big circle you drive around to get to your designated street. I guess like Dupont circle....I go through at least 3 each morning and everyone gets to them and just become completely dumb...like, "you go...", "ok I'll go"..it's like a twisted four way stop, accept you have to keep going. So what's the real purpose of these Round Abouts? Not sure if that's the right name...

Answer 1

The point is that the people who drive are not as smart as the designer of the traffic circle.  Circles, or 'round-abouts, do away with traffic lights (stop lights).  Traffic maintains its flow and everyone should get where they are going more quickly.

That does not take into account the "human" factor.  In order for the circle to function properly: everyone must obey the speed limit; everyone must keep a safe distance from the car ahead; everyone must be courteous enough to let the "merge" occur.  So much for the traffic circle here in the US.

Answer 2

There should be no doubt about who has right of way at a roundabout.  Here in UK, the rule is to give way to traffic coming from the right (in US I guess that would be traffic coming from the left).  Roundabouts keep the traffic flowing better than stop lights which cause traffic to bunch and also cause chaos when they fail.  However, I do agree that the roundabout on the Spanish Town Road on the outskirts of Kingston, Jamaica is a nightmare experience

Answer 3

There's only one rule on a round-about.  give way to the right.  if everyone did this they would work much better,  why do people get so confused.

Answer 4

to make people frustrated.Kidding, they are to control traffic.

Answer 5

The UK has hundreds of them, their purpose is to slow down and control traffic at junctions.

Answer 6

Roundabouts are actually very useful in some cases, but only if people use them right.  If people don't know how to handle  them, they become a nightmare.  

They help keep traffic flowing and also prevent people from speeding.

Answer 7

They allow traffic to flow freely.  We have rotaries all over the northeast and if you grow up with them, you know how they work.  It's when outsiders come in and gum up the works that rotaries begin to look stupid.  Go to Cape Cod any summer weekend and watch the traffic at the Bourne and Sagamore bridges.  You can always tell the locals from the tourists...

Answer 8

Once you get used to them, there are very few problems. They're not that difficult to maneuver through. Two of them were recently constructed near my home. At first, drivers were frustrated, but now that people have had time to adjust, things have gone much smoother.

In addition to the answers posted above, there are two more benefits. First, during a power outage, traffic will continue to flow normally. And second, although roundabouts may not significantly reduce the number of accidents, the ones that do occur are much less serious. They tend to be instances of sideswiping rather than broadside or head-on collisions.

Answer 9

i drive through them at 20 mph

look left if there isn't a car on the circle go if there is yield until a clear spot than go  don't worry about the people on the right as they will yield to you

i wonder if shelly lives in a country where they drive on the left side of the road     all of her answers seem to be backwords

Answer 10

I don't like em either. Most people are sucky drivers so they don't really work as they were designed to. The only places I've seen them work are in the U.K and in America's newly developed residential areas (some parts of Howard County in MD).