Citizens of Springfield, Missouri showed up to a city council meeting to discuss the city’s Flock contract. The mayor shut them down and arrested two people for ‘disruption of meetings of city council.’
Opposition to them seems largely confined to those who regard wide arcs and looking left for other traffic as unreasonable demands against their intellect.
Honestly, I like a roundabout and I can handle them just fine. However. Most of my fellow drivers cannot. There’s a couple near my house. When they were newly installed I was like, OK, people suck at using these things now, but they’re new. That was 15 years ago. People still suck just as much at using them.
If it requires special training and awareness, it’s not a good solution for American traffic patterns.
If it requires special training and awareness, it’s not a good solution for American traffic patterns.
I think the issue you’re pointing to is that some drivers aren’t good at driving, and that puts others at risk. If that’s the case, I agree; there are a lot of bad drivers on the road, but that’s a problem everywhere, not just in America. I’d say that overall American drivers are, excuse the pun, middle-of-the-road when it comes to safety. Addressing the claim that if something takes special training and awareness then it’s not a good solution: driving in itself requires special training and awareness. Every driver on the road is required to have taken a driving test and receive a state-issued license. But that doesn’t stop people from disregarding rules and breaking laws. Even great drivers will make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes will have deadly consequences.
We cannot eliminate driver error without removing drivers, which will never happen in places with car-centric infrastructure and culture. What we can do is mitigate risks and reduce the severity of collisions when they inevitably occur. The data show that roundabouts are safer and more efficient than other forms of traffic control, and when collisions do happen, they happen at much lower speeds and oblique angles, which lowers the risk of injury and reduces cost of repairs.
The argument that roundabouts are bad because it means learning how to use them is an indictment against drivers, not roundabouts.
Honestly, I like a roundabout and I can handle them just fine. However. Most of my fellow drivers cannot. There’s a couple near my house. When they were newly installed I was like, OK, people suck at using these things now, but they’re new. That was 15 years ago. People still suck just as much at using them.
If it requires special training and awareness, it’s not a good solution for American traffic patterns.
I think the issue you’re pointing to is that some drivers aren’t good at driving, and that puts others at risk. If that’s the case, I agree; there are a lot of bad drivers on the road, but that’s a problem everywhere, not just in America. I’d say that overall American drivers are, excuse the pun, middle-of-the-road when it comes to safety. Addressing the claim that if something takes special training and awareness then it’s not a good solution: driving in itself requires special training and awareness. Every driver on the road is required to have taken a driving test and receive a state-issued license. But that doesn’t stop people from disregarding rules and breaking laws. Even great drivers will make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes will have deadly consequences.
We cannot eliminate driver error without removing drivers, which will never happen in places with car-centric infrastructure and culture. What we can do is mitigate risks and reduce the severity of collisions when they inevitably occur. The data show that roundabouts are safer and more efficient than other forms of traffic control, and when collisions do happen, they happen at much lower speeds and oblique angles, which lowers the risk of injury and reduces cost of repairs.
The argument that roundabouts are bad because it means learning how to use them is an indictment against drivers, not roundabouts.
Most accidents happen on straight roads, not roundabouts. My statistics are made up, but they’re probably not wrong.