Gerryattrick

Today I had a very near miss on my bike. Riding around a very busy roundabout with two lanes I was in the middle of the road, as I was going to leave the roundabout two exits later, when a builder's van cut across me from the right hand lane, turning left to leave at the exit I was just passing. I had to jam on the brakes and come to a complete stop in the middle of a busy roundabout which is not the ideal position to be in.

I have no problem generally when riding in traffic but the one aspect that seems to cause most problems is crossing roundabouts, especially those on busy roads, often with five or more access points. I believe that a high proportion of fatalities in the UK happens on roundabouts, with one notorious roundabout in London having three fatalities in as many years.

From my visits to the US, I cannot remember seeing any roundabouts. Do you have them? Although they are good at keeping busy motorised transport moving, they can be a nightmare for cyclists where you usually have to accelerate very quickly to enter, change lanes and exit.

chasm54

They have them - they call them "traffic circles", I believe - but they are as yet much less common than in the UK.

I agree they can be problematic. My only serious crash outside competition in the last ten years occurred when a car drove onto a roundabout when I was already in possession of the lane, hitting me and separating my shoulder. Worse, it totalled my nice 1984 Raleigh Royal!

I try to keep "changing lanes" to a minimum, but that has its own issues and can't always be done. Most are OK but the sort of major intersections you are talking about are inherently cyclist-unfriendly.

volosong

There are a few here in SoCal. Not many. In the one in my area, the only way to safely get through it is to enter it with a burst of speed, and keep up with vehicular traffic until exiting. Thankfully, it is only a two lane'r and normally has light traffic. Two of the four entrances/exits go to places without much of anything.

RPK79

Roundabouts are the stupidest thing ever conceived in the world of intersections. Okay, there are probably worse ideas, but roundabouts are up there.

Jim from Boston

Here in Massachusetts they are frequent, and are called “rotaries.” I once learned that an acquaintance lived near a treacherous rotary involving on- and off-ramps to a freeway, and she asked me, “You ride on that devil rotary?.”

My strategy includes:

DnvrFox

We have some "traffic circles" here and I hate them.

Interestingly, the town removed one a few years back. That was great.

chasm54

They really aren't, you know. In most circumstances they are much better than traffic lights at regulating the flow of traffic. But the more complex ones do need to be engineered with cyclists in mind.

Doug64

I tend to take the opposite view. After using several hundred of them while on a 3 month tour through Europe, I found them the safest and easiest way to get through a busy intersection. There are many cities in Oregon that are starting to use them. They are efficient, safe, slow traffic speeds and are easy to use once you get the hang of them.

I had a little trouble trying to figure out how the driver in the OP was making a left turn from the circle until someone mentioned the UK. Traffic must flow in a clockwise direction. Regardless of flow direction, I still can't visualize how he cut you off, If you were in the center lane. Or maybe he was in the center of the left lane? The driver was just a jerk!

Steve B.

Agree, they are much more efficient at getting cars thru an intersection then a light. Less pollution from idling cars as well.

In the US, few drivers have the driving skills to understand how to use them efficiently as the trick seemingly is to not come to a complete bloody stop to await every driver in view time to enter the intersection. The trick is to slow and merge. In the US, nobody gets this, a result of having so few circles.

Then of course, when you are on a bike, the drivers not in the intersection need to understand that they actually have to yield to a bike IN the intersection, which few drivers are willing to do, cyclists being of course, third world citizens not worthy of respect.

Rant over

SB

Shimagnolo

Incorrect.

1. They result in far few accidents than stop signs or traffic lights.
2. The accidents that do occur are much less likely to result in serious injury.
3. They move a lot more traffic than stop signs or traffic lights.

Reference: Traffic

Roundabouts have been showing up in the Boulder/Superior area, and I love them.

Bob S

The statistics show that RoundAbouts / Roateries etc. are much safer than our traditional stop signs by a large margin. Also they help reduce pollution and increase gas milage. What is not to like.

" the evidence that roundabouts safer than traditional signalized or signed intersections is overwhelming. The Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), Federal Highway Administration and many state DOTs agree. If you're really into this, you can read the recent ITE here. A snapshot regarding previous research from around the world from that report:In 1992, a before-and-after study was conducted in the Netherlands of 181 roundabouts that were previously stop controlled or signalized intersections. They found that the number of accidents in a year dropped by 51% on an average and the injury accidents decreased by an average forty four percent.
A before-and-after study of 73 roundabouts in Australia conducted in the year 1981 showed a reduction of 74 percent in the casualty (i.e., fatality) accident rate and a 32 percent reduction in property damage accidents.
In 1996, 34 modern roundabouts in Germany were studied. This study found that the number of fatalities and severe injuries decreased from 18 to 2. The number of accidents with heavy property damage decreased from 24 to 3.
France studied about 83 roundabouts in the year 1986, and concluded that the transformation of regular intersections into roundabouts yielded significant safety benefits. While the fatalities reduced by 88 percent, the injuries fell by approximately 78 percent. Another study of 522 roundabouts in the year 1988 found that 90 percent of them had no injury accidents at all.
In Switzerland, two roundabouts built in 1977 and 1980 were studied for 4-8 years after they were converted as roundabouts from the conventional intersections. The findings of the study were that there were reductions of 75 percent in total accidents and 90 percent in the number of injuries.

and if you really want more https://www.scribd.com/doc/174870895/ITE-A-Comparative-Evaluation-of-the-Safety-Performance-of-Roundabouts-and-Traditional-Intersection-Controls

Cognitive

I live in Carmel, Indiana which has more roundabouts than any city in the USA. We are at 65-70 at least for a city with 80-85 thousand residents.

They do present some special challenges to road cyclists. And even more challenges to trail / bike path cyclists. But for the most part they work well.

NVanHiker

I drive a long-wheelbase vehicle for a living, and at least for the 'traffic-calming' circles, I either cheat on left turns or drive up and over.

Dirt Road

I've never actually encountered a roundabout. There was a huge traffic circle in Columbus, GA that folks liked to pretend they were NASCAR in, but even that one was removed.

OldsCOOL

The nearest roundabout from here is about 35mi away.

maddmaxx 

Our problem in the past was differing right of way laws in adjoining states. Do the people on the right have right of way or do the people already in the circle have right of way............. What a disaster. In some places within CT they are removing circles as fast as possible and replacing them with intersections and in others where the traffic patterns allow they are replacing intersections with roundabouts. Given the average training level of our drivers, the towing companies and the breakers are going to make a fortune.

chasm54

All this sounds bizarre to a European, we're so used to them. The rule is simply that you give way to anything approaching from your left. Slow down as you approach, don't stop unless you have to, if there's room for you to enter the circle do, if not, wait until there is. Like other posters have mentioned, wherever the issue has been researched, roundabouts have cut the number and severity of collisions. But of course, this won't apply if nobody observes the rules.

DnvrFox

We have a very busy intersection in the mountains leading from Interstate 70 to a nearby town of Frisco and another exit to a hiking trail. There usd to be a stop sign resulting in huge backups from the interstate, as this was also the exit from Frisco to the interstate in the opposite direction. Two stop sogns removed. In this case, a traffic circle WAS the answer - now you can go to the town with no backup or delay at all. There is a place for traffic circles, but they also removed one near me because it caused more congestion after the road was widened.

mr_bill

For whatever reason that devil doesnt spook me.

Rutherford Ave rotary (and pretty much every approach to it) on the other hand. It sometimes feels like the Maine thing - "yah cahn't get theah from heah." Even Revere Beach Pkwy rotary is a piece of pie in comparison to riding through the town.

Ironically, the innocuous rotary on Medford Street/High Street was a close encounter moment. But that wasn't the rotary's fault....

-mr. bill

JohnDThompson 

Planners here have "gotten religion" about roundabouts and at least a dozen have been built within a few miles of my house. I've gotten accustomed to them now; the most important thing I've found is to "take the whole lane" when entering the roundabout to avoid being run off the road by an inattentive driver turning directly in your path.

berner

One of the most thrilling experiences in my life has been negotiating roundabouts in Mexico City which can be thought of as dueling with taxis. After that, I can drive anywhere.

dbg

Unfortunately America seems to be full of people who just force their way into a lane and make the current occupant take evasive action. That kind of behavior locks up a roundabout. And with car and lane battles going on, nobody pays attention to pedestrians or cyclists.

I'm pretty skeptical of the supposed accident "research." Stats from a few hundred new roundabouts versus a quarter million existing traffic-light'ed intersections --just begs for inaccuracies. And the same research says stop signs are also safer than traffic lights --potentially safer than roundabouts.

I'm not against roundabouts. But I don't think they belong at extremely busy intersections especially where there is a lot of pedestrian and bicycle traffic. And I'm not convinced they are anything but a way to slow down traffic at an intersection, --again at the expense of pedestrian and bicycle safety.

fietsbob

One replaced the T intersection where 202 meets US 101 on the west end of town .. traffic flow is better, now ..
& there are a couple cross walks to use if you dont want to follow the circle's 2 lanes to go from west to south bound
onto the SW shore of town, on Young's bay.

chasm54

Well, I hold no brief for the researchers. But my understanding is that in most cases they have compared accident rates pre- and post-roundabout at the same intersection, and found a substantial reduction.

There are certainly intersections at which the traffic flow in one direction is so intense that nobody coming from the intersection can access the roundabout. There's one close to my home, for example, which during the rush-hour uses lights to regulate the flow onto the roundabout, then has the lights turned off for most of the day. Works well. And speaking as a driver, my experience is that traffic flow is generally much improved when roundabouts are introduced, at ordinary densities the system becomes self-balancing in a way that lights can't really achieve.

However, I certainly agree with you (and with the OP) that they can be problematic for cyclists and pedestrians. Not much of a problem at ordinary intersections, but potentially difficult at the more complex end of the spectrum. Most of those problems could probably be engineered out with a bit of imagination and expense, but unfortunately that is seldom done - at least, it's seldom done here.

FBinNY 

The UK has far more roundabouts than the USA because it's road grid is very different.

The network was relatively complete long before motor transport, and reflects the premium placed on connecting points by the shortest possible distance. US roads are sort of a grid of mostly north/south and east/west roads with simple crossroad intersections, and one must go up one road and down another to move diagonally. The UK's grid connects the diagonals so the horse doesn't walk as far. That means that the UK has a large number of intersections with 3 or more roads crossing, which of course weren't a problem for horses and pedestrians.