3 ms·
I live in the Bay Area but I grew up in the UK where we have lots of great roundabouts and I can tell you that the roundabouts in California are beyond terrible
by jahewson 3y ago
I live in the Bay Area but I grew up in the UK where we have lots of great roundabouts and I can tell you that the roundabouts in California are beyond terrible - why? Because pedestrians have right-of-way at the roundabout entry/exit points, so cars have to constantly stop on the roundabout, defeating its very purpose. Indeed, there's usually a marked crosswalk at every entry/exit (and even if not pedestrians have the right of way on "unmarked crosswalks" in CA).
In the UK roundabouts are the only place where pedestrians don't have right of way and there's always a small island in the center of each (unmarked) crosswalk, so only one direction of traffic needs to be crossed at a time. The cars flow around the roundabout and don't stop.
- chrismcb 3y agoAre you sure about that? I'm not a UKian but the rules seem to imply that you have to give easy to pedestrians at roundabouts
- fatnoah 3y agoYou should come to Massachusetts. We up the ante by adding stoplights, stop signs, left turns, and pretty much any permutation of road topology.
- crote 3y agoYou can avoid that issue by offsetting the pedestrian crossing one car's length from the roundabout. This allows a single car to stop and yield, while allowing subsequent cars going to other directions to continue unimpeded. It also reduces the angle between driver and pedestrian, greatly improving visibility. You can see this in practice at [0]. [0]: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1124016,5.1914329,70m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1124016,5.1914329,70m/data=!...