Re:Magic Roundabout (Swindon)
by dghughes on Thursday January 23, 2020 @09:03AM
(#22127561)
My Canadian province has been on a big roundabout building spree. Nothing fancy just one lane or two lane types. I like them but many people fear them for some reason I suspect because they don't understand them. Some people actually go the wrong way when entering (against traffic). Some people will cross from an outside lane over the inner lane nearly crashing into cars.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Brit from Ontario here and have to agree. The problem is roundabouts were never on the Canadian drivers test until a few years ago and no one knows the rules.
Plus, the Canadian design of putting the pedestrian crosswalk, right at the roundabout and having cars stop in the roundabout to yield to a waiting pedestrian adds additional risk.
If you live or learned to drive somewhere that doesn't have them I can understand being confused or scared by it. I love them but frequently see people stop in the middle of one because they think they need to yield to those entering
This was the default rule in Russia until very recently. Most (but not all) of roundabouts had yield signs on each entrance essentially enforcing “normal” rule, still it’s an utter source of confusion as many larger roundabouts have complex priority signs and lights systems, so it couldn’t go into muscle memory.