3 ms·

I moved to the US from the UK, where yield ("give way") signs were the standard and stop signs an attention-getting rarity. I've often wondered how much harm t

by sveiss 6y ago

I moved to the US from the UK, where yield ("give way") signs were the standard and stop signs an attention-getting rarity. I've often wondered how much harm to health has been done by the increased emissions at excess of stop signs (at least in the parts of the US I've visited). Does it outweigh whatever reduction in accidents you get by forcing a stop at junctions which (to my untrained eye) could safely be controlled with a yield?

kube-system 6y ago
I would be surprised if it did. The way a lot of our roads have been designed doesn’t really make yield signs an option. Only recently has the US begun to embrace roundabouts over the basic 90 degree intersection. Unfortunately, it’s hard to retrofit existing intersections because roundabouts take more space.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cameldrv 6y ago
  As you say, roundabouts take up more space, and they are not nice for pedestrians. They're good for major interchanges if you don't want to build an underpass and there's lots of land. If land is cheap though, where are all the cars coming from?
- Sharlin 6y ago
  Why aren’t yield signs an option? In Europe they’re ubiquitous, everywhere where a road or street lower in the road hierarchy crosses a higher-tier one. No roundabout needed. As far as I know they work just fine.
- anarticle 6y ago
  In the 90s, many roundabouts were removed especially in the northeast. I don’t think this is true. In New Jersey alone I can remember seven or more very large roundabouts that were removed.
  - peatmoss 6y ago
    Those that you’re thinking of were likely “rotaries” which have some major design, functional, and qualitative differences as compared to roundabouts. Size, travel speed, and enforeced entry angle are the main differences between rotaries and roundabouts. And then to confuse matters further “traffic circles” are common as traffic calming devices on the west coast. These are also round, but are very small and do not have a splitter island preceding. They usually sit in the middle of small residential intersections. Also, sometimes rotaries (the largest, fastest, and most dangerous of the trifecta of round traffic things) are sometimes called traffic circles, which are otherwise the smallest / slowest traffic device. If all that is confusing, well, you’re not alone. My feeling is that roundabouts and traffic circles are good, but rotaries are just highway interchange supercolliders. Removing them from the northeast was very good.
rienbdj 6y ago
you missed an important purpose of stop signs which is to make a route less appealing to motorists in the first place. ultimately this is necessary if the volume of traffic is ever to be reduced.

by sveiss 6y ago

kube-system 6y ago

I would be surprised if it did. The way a lot of our roads have been designed doesn’t really make yield signs an option. Only recently has the US begun to embrace roundabouts over the basic 90 degree intersection. Unfortunately, it’s hard to retrofit existing intersections because roundabouts take more space.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cameldrv 6y ago
As you say, roundabouts take up more space, and they are not nice for pedestrians. They're good for major interchanges if you don't want to build an underpass and there's lots of land. If land is cheap though, where are all the cars coming from?
Sharlin 6y ago
Why aren’t yield signs an option? In Europe they’re ubiquitous, everywhere where a road or street lower in the road hierarchy crosses a higher-tier one. No roundabout needed. As far as I know they work just fine.
anarticle 6y ago
In the 90s, many roundabouts were removed especially in the northeast. I don’t think this is true. In New Jersey alone I can remember seven or more very large roundabouts that were removed.
- peatmoss 6y ago
  Those that you’re thinking of were likely “rotaries” which have some major design, functional, and qualitative differences as compared to roundabouts. Size, travel speed, and enforeced entry angle are the main differences between rotaries and roundabouts. And then to confuse matters further “traffic circles” are common as traffic calming devices on the west coast. These are also round, but are very small and do not have a splitter island preceding. They usually sit in the middle of small residential intersections. Also, sometimes rotaries (the largest, fastest, and most dangerous of the trifecta of round traffic things) are sometimes called traffic circles, which are otherwise the smallest / slowest traffic device. If all that is confusing, well, you’re not alone. My feeling is that roundabouts and traffic circles are good, but rotaries are just highway interchange supercolliders. Removing them from the northeast was very good.

rienbdj 6y ago

you missed an important purpose of stop signs which is to make a route less appealing to motorists in the first place. ultimately this is necessary if the volume of traffic is ever to be reduced.