Roundabouts are great for cars, and awful for just about everyone else. People, bikes, buses, trucks: all face difficulty or death in their presence.
> People, bikes, buses, trucks: all face difficulty or death in their presence.
Roundabouts make my bicycle commute way faster. This in The Netherlands where we cycle a lot. Difficulty or death is entirely incorrect. Suggest to compare the designs across countries, maybe there's a huge difference in the design?
I think the issue comes when people try to circumvent the give-way priority - which gets worse when there are multiple lanes and multiple exits.
It certainly seems to be a people problem rather than a roundabout deign issue from my experience?
People trying to "beat" people out onto the roundabout rather than giving way, people not using proper lane discipline and squeezing/cutting into other lanes etc..
In localities with few/no roundabouts, the vast majority of accidents still happen at intersections. Intersections of roads are the most prone to accidents (for fairly obvious reasons), with or without roundabouts.
I believe there is research showing roundabouts are actually quite a bit safer in general, but it's possible it depends on various things. But anyway, accidents happen mostly where two roads intersect, either way.