RV accident at a Roundabout.

It looks like the RV driver forgot about the "round" part of "roundabout"!

Dutch_12078 wrote:
It looks like the RV driver forgot about the "round" part of "roundabout"!

LOL Seems a lot of traffic departments have decided that most drivers now days don't know how to handle a 4-way stop intersection and many are replacing them with roundabouts. Two problems I've noticed with this though: First, even fewer people know how to handle a roundabout, and second most of the roundabouts aren't build large enough to hold enough vehicles to make them practical. In most cases everyone ends up waiting for the one vehicle to exit the roundabout before they attempt to enter. I've also seen idiots stop in the roundabout waving for people to enter ahead of them. I'm guessing those people have no clue about what "Yield to traffic in the circle" means.

According to my Australian buddy, they have pretty much eliminated 4 way stops in Australia, either 2 way, or building roundabouts.

Hwy monies were allotted so HWY 260 between I-17 and Cottonwood is being widened .....2 lanes east & west bound. Roughly 15 mile section will go for 1 lane each direction with a couple of short passing lanes and be 2 full lanes each direction----divided hwy.
Excellent! Whoo-Hoo


Hold your horses.......7 round-a-bouts are being built also.

Had to do something with the monies being allocated.

Hopefully the driver and any passengers of the motor home are okay.
Roundabouts in general are more efficient and safer. As with anything new, there is a short learning curve.

I took drivers test in my state and test had several questions about those roundabouts. Common since was not one of the answers, so I missed one. Got home and looked them up and here is what I learned...
More and more places are going to them; Roundabouts have many more accidents, but much much lower injuries (or worse) because of speed involed.

CavemanCharlie wrote:
I heard that the man driving had a hart attack

Show me an intersection design that works well when the driver is going thru a heart attack. :S

Reality is roundabouts used in appropriate places are great. Even if you are unfamiliar because of the low speeds, they tend to have fewer crashes and the crashes you do get tend to be minor fender benders.

People get nervous because they are different. Reality is they are very simple to drive:
- Single Lane Roundabouts: Look to your left on approaching. If you have a gap, go. Otherwise wait for a gap. Once in, proceed until you reach your exit.
- Multi Lane Roundabout: Approach in the same lane as if it was a normal intersection (ie: if you are turning left, enter in the left lane). Otherwise it's pretty much the same.

This was about 15yrs ago, the first big roundabout in Michigan and I was in the Traffic Department. We were all sure it was going to fail, so when they opened it and there was a web cam, we all gathered around to see the carnage. After about 15minutes, we were convinced it wasn't fully open as there were no backups, so we sat an intern down to count cars. A couple hours later we totaled up the numbers and it was carrying 5,000 cars per hour with no backups. I only know of 3 signalized intersections that come close to that volume of traffic and backups & delays are substantial at all 3.

This is not to say a poorly designed roundabout won't be a problem but the vast majority of complaints are people just not comfortable with something new.

Mortimer Brewster wrote:
Hopefully the driver and any passengers of the motor home are okay.
Roundabouts in general are more efficient and safer. As with anything new, there is a short learning curve.

Roundabouts are nothing new at all. Where I grew up in North Jersey, we had them on one particular road since the 50s or 60s, but they were called circles. At one point, some time in the 80s, they did away eith them as they were too dangerous. Funny to see them make a comeback.