Does Anyone Else Feel This Way About Roundabouts?
I have lived down south, and in Maryland and had my first taste of using a roundabout. Now they are coming to the Northland, little by little.
It's confusing to me because you have to stay to the inside until you see your exit then move to the outside. Roundabouts came from Europe and they know how to use them. In America, we aren't taught how to use them. Every time I use the one in Superior or Moose Lake, or the one in Cloquet, I get lost and get off on the wrong exit, or end up getting stuck in the roundabout and everyone honks.
It's even more confusing because the roundabout in Superior has an off-ramp to avoid the roundabout coming off the Bong Bridge, but they don't have that on any other part, so if you want to get back on the Bong Bridge, you have to drive around and hope you get out in time to exit to the bridge.
UC Davis has these rules with correctly using a roundabout:
1. Slow down. Obey traffic signs.
2. Yield to pedestrians and bicyclists.
3. Yield to traffic on your left already in the roundabout.
4. Enter the roundabout when there is a safe gap in traffic.
5. Keep your speed low within the roundabout.
6. As you approach your exit, turn on your right turn signal.
7. Yield to pedestrians and bicycles as you exit.
Obey signs? What signs? Most of the ones I have been in don't have signs and some of the signs are confusing. What are pedestrians and bikers doing in the roundabout? Yield to traffic, yield to oncoming, stay on the inside yield to the outside but move to the outside to get out and yield to the traffic coming out. It's stress-inducing if you ask me.
I know they cause fewer accidents, because people aren't rushing to beat the yellow light, and you don't actually stop, so people aren't rear-ended, and they are cheaper to make so the state and city like them. I'm just saying, I don't! I hate them!
This both helps me to know how to use a roundabout and more confused too. Here's how to correctly use one. Are you following it?
This is unbelievable, and they say it's safer, but to me, it's like doing a sudoku puzzle, It requires thinking and I don't want to think when I drive.
There are a lot of roundabouts in the United States, but Americans hate them as I do. They have proven they are safer, but I almost get hit or hit someone every time I am in one. They say you have to yield to pedestrians and bikers, what are they doing in there?
I love that Darth Vader makes fun of a roundabout, he can't even say it. Do you think he uses a roundabout in the Darth spaceship? NO!