This may sound stupid, and please let me know if I'm wrong, but I heard years ago that the reason American traffic circles don't work is that we make them too small around. In other words, the ones in Europe have a much larger diameter and therefore the traffic doesn't have to slow to a snails pace like here in the US. Most traffic circles I have seen have a speed limit of 15ish mph. But, this may be different in different areas of the country, I just don't know.
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