long beach, CA. we got our traffic circle, and a road surrounding called the "outer traffic circle"xmbts said:East coast has rotaries, West does not.
And that's all I think I know about it.
>.<
We cope by promptly ignoring all posted speed limits. Here in Chicago we rarely go under 70 on the highways.Iggy Rufflebar said:on a side note but still slightly related, what the hell is up with the speed limits? 50 was the highest I saw in my time in Illinois, it's so frustratingly slow I don't know how they cope lol
in the midwest we have some in my city, they aren't huge ones, mostly in neighborhoods, just to reduce speeds for the most part.Jewrean said:In European countries and also here in my home country of Australia roundabouts are extremely common.
I was told that there are indeed roundabouts in America but are extremely uncommon. This was also shown in the Simpsons when they visited England and were completely clueless about a roundabout.
Roundabouts reduce traffic considerably by means of increasing throughput. I suppose my question is why aren't there many roundabouts in America? If you are not from America; are roundabouts common or uncommon?
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A simple roundabout
Down where i live (NSW) there is one that i know of.Jewrean said:Proper roundabouts are usually put in place of busy 4 way intersections. The majority of the time (providing people know how to use them) you rarely need to stop at all. A reduced speed is far more preferable then the chance of being stopped for 30+ seconds.New Troll said:Roundabouts are usually very annoying cause one road is usually much more travelled than the other so when you're on that road it's like having to slow down for nothing.
The way the two lanes should be set up is like this:
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This allows both lanes to continue traveling straight as well as allowing traffic to turn off. Do not be afraid of them, they are far superior to a regular intersection given proper road planning.
I've never seen one like that here in Australia. Yes we do have busy highways cris-crossing one another and there are exits that join. I have seen the circular exits like that before but not in all four corners, usually just in the congested areas.FalloutJack said:We do and I've seen them, but now I want to ask a question.
Does Europe have any cloverleaf roadways? You know, like this?
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Are you kidding me?xmbts said:East coast has rotaries, West does not.
Indeed. I've often wondered why the states has quite so many 4-way intersections. Here in the UK, 4-way junctions are really quite rare. Sure there are places where one road has to cross another without a roundabout, but not that often, and the majority of them have traffic lights or the one of the roads has muuuuuch lower traffic.Jewrean said:Proper roundabouts are usually put in place of busy 4 way intersections. The majority of the time (providing people know how to use them) you rarely need to stop at all. A reduced speed is far more preferable then the chance of being stopped for 30+ seconds.New Troll said:Roundabouts are usually very annoying cause one road is usually much more travelled than the other so when you're on that road it's like having to slow down for nothing.
The way the two lanes should be set up is like this:
![]()
![]()
This allows both lanes to continue traveling straight as well as allowing traffic to turn off. Do not be afraid of them, they are far superior to a regular intersection given proper road planning.