Quote:
Originally Posted by Nate the great
They're even worse when I am in an area for the first time, and I don't know exactly where my destination is. Then the roundabouts keep me from finding the house I am looking for.
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That's where the "beauty" of the roundabout falls flat. There's two levels of familiarity required for them to be navigated effortlessly. One first has to be familiar with roundabouts in general (a problem in many areas of the US where drivers can live their entire lives without ever encountering one). And one needs to be familiar with THAT roundabout in order to sufficiently anticipate your exit from it (it also helps if one uses that same roundabout regularly). In busy areas with lots of non-local traffic, this means the roundabout is a stressful, hectic, and unfamiliar hurdle for everyone except the folks who have already become accustomed to them (and to that one in particular).
Intersections may be bad for the flow of traffic in general, but their navigation is exactly the same the world over. There is no familiarity requirement. "When the light turns green, I'm going THAT way." The same cannot be said for roundabouts. Even if you're familiar with them in general, the new one you encounter may have intricacies that can't be anticipated. In my opinion, roundabouts over-complicate the decision-making process for minimal gains in traffic-flow efficiency.