My Nemesis, The Roundabout
A roundabout is a type of circular junction in which road traffic must travel in one direction around a central island. Signs usually direct traffic entering the circle to slow down and give the right of way to drivers already in the circle. Duh!
Must I continue to mingle with the stupid? Last year my community decided we had to have a roundabout traffic circle. A four way stop wasn't good enough for them. So they thought it would be great to confuse the hell out of, what's proving to be, more than half the community. Who knew I was one of the smart ones. I can get through that thing just fine, can't do it without swearing, but I'm confident in my navigation skills when it comes to roundabout traffic circles. It's really is quite simple.
You do not have to put your turn signal on, you are only going one way, right.
Please don't stop in the circle, the car coming towards you is doing something we call yielding. You have a drivers license, you know what yielding is, right?
Please do not stop in the circle, I can not stress this enough. The people behind you are going to become agitated, we will swear at you like a drunken sailor.
If you see no one, you don't have to stop, because there is no stop sign. Put on your big girl panties and don't hesitate. You must never hesitate.
We're moving now aren't we?
There is a sign that will say "Roundabout Ahead" and it has a diagram of a circle. See how they do that? They warn you of a traffic challenge, giving you ample time to mentally prepare. So now you can tell the person on the phone to 'hold on you have to focus'. You can't just phone in a roundabout, you'll need to activate several brain cells.
But the best advice I can give you is just avoid roundabouts, you are pissing a lot of people off.
6 comments:
A neighboring city has fallen in love with them, too. They are better than stop signs or lights but are obviously too confusing for some people!
What? Put down the phone? Surely you jest.
It really makes me mad when someone who is obviously on the phone does something really stupid while driving.
Ha! Where I live, roundabouts are mostly all we have - which is a good thing because many drivers here fail to even obey the basic rules of traffic. "Stop signs? Stop signs? We need no steenkin' stop signs!"
They finally replaced one of the few 4-way stops with a roundabout after two pedestrians - on separate occasions - were killed trying to cross the street, never mind the numerous accidents that had already occurred there.
In Pennsylvania, we don't have such things. Our roads are bad enough without them. :)
Good advice, Sue. We have several of those here. Maybe they should put the definition of Yield beneath the word on the sign.
They seem to be getting rid of them in New Jersey. The replacements are massive, traffic-light controlled intersections.
Many of the remaining "traffic circles" (known as a 'rotary' in New England states), have signs up giving the right of way to the 'feeder roads', not traffic in the circle. Some better circles have traffic lights on feeder roads a short distance before the circle, to provide breaks in the traffic.
Don't understand why people have trouble with them - only drive counterclockwuse, and first one in has right of way. How hard is that?
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