It seems whatever a person’s political persuasion there is one thing all can agree upon; roundabouts are the devil’s handiwork. Observe as Lewis Black reads commentary by members of his audience about traffic circles, drivers young and old, potholes and someone who thinks he should have an emotional support badger to help him handle the stress of dealing with other drivers.
Warning: Leftist flock to Black’s shows so there is a lot of foul language. Watch
I like traffic circles. They’re fun!
And here in Sarasota County, the land of snowbirds (who aren’t used to them) and retired people (some of whom should have turned in their driver licenses a long time ago), traffic circles are particularly challenging. Plus they offer lots of opportunities to lay hard on the horn to intimidate and confuse the poor fools who don’t know how to negotiate them.
There’s one near my house we call The Circle of Death. Actually that’s not fair; I don’t think anyone has actually died there. But that sounds better than The Circle of Dents.
He’s doing a comedy routine reading from an iPad? And here I thought this was going to be another progressive rock discussion involving the group YES.
There is a traffic circle in Caledonia NY, near where I grew up – it’s there because of the Soldiers Monument that was erected right in middle of the intersection back in 1900. Governor Teddy Roosevelt was there for the opening dedication. There have been numerous ballot resolutions to have it relocated to a nearby park but all have failed.
There used be stop signs at 2 of the corners and the 2 other corners had an unspoken right of way. All the locals knew how to navigate the circle and accidents were rare. Then some nimrod in Albany at the DOT got wind of it and now there’s a yield sign at each corner, more One Way signs than I can count, and about 50 gallons of paint for lane markings.
Traffic circles are great, as long as everybody remembers that it’s a dance, not a race.
They are a curse
We have a roundabout in Ava. They can’t figure out how stop signs work, and are more befuddled by yield signs. It’s fun to share the roads with fucktards.
In DC some of the circles are controlled by traffic lights, and some aren’t. The whole point in DC and MD was to yield to the traffic that is in the circle. I thought that was universal. The point of a circle was to have no one stop unless it had to. Apparently free will is a bad idea. Apparently telling them what to do is a bad idea. Apparently millennials and Tesla drivers, and BMW drivers, and Toyota Hybrid drivers are all scumbags.
The city of Spokane built 2 small roundabouts on my street, one in front of my house and the other 4 blocks away to the East to calm traffic coming off of NW Blvd. over to the N/S corridor of Monroe Street about 8 or so years ago. People use to zoom up and down my street trying to get to get to Monroe and use it as a shortcut when there used to be a traffic light there, but the idiots down at city hall removed that light and put in stop signs on the corners about 3 years ago in order to further calm traffic but ended up turning it into a not so well-intentioned cluster fuck to cross Monroe. And the first year or so after the roundabout was put in front of my house, we had idiots that ran right thru the middle of it more than once which was amusing to watch. It’s all this Agenda 21 bullshit to get us to quit being dependent on our cars to go everywhere which pisses me and everyone else off. Some roundabouts make sense like the ones up North by Deer Park Wash. on Hwy 395 which has actually helped the flow of traffic on 395 because of the heavy volume of traffic.
Traffic Roundabout’s are a type of societal IQ test. Sadly far too many drivers are far too stupid to understand how they work. Proof that we are NOT an intelligent species. Merely a clever one….and not all of us are even clever.
I saw a video on YouTube that said how roundabouts would make the world safe for Democracy, make everyone look like a babe or a hunk, and end world hunger. The big thing was that they would eliminate the need for traffic signals. I made a comment saying that when I was in the UK in 2009, there were traffic signals at roundabouts because without them, it would take forever to get in from side roads because traffic was so heavy on the the main roads. I was told basically that the traffic signals were used in peak periods to make the roundabouts, which were supposed to eliminate traffic lights, work better.
In other words, they do not do what they were taunted as doing.
there is a round a bout in the middle of timbuckthree, navajo rez, AZ near where Forest Gump stopped running near Monument Valley
The Middle of Nowhere.
It has drift marks on it where rez kids race
Its like an IQ test. If you cant figure out 4 way stops, why the heck put in a roundabout. Trying to thin the herd?
“leftists flock to Black’s shows” ’cause he’s a leftist fucktard himself!
… very unfunny too
There’s one near my house and the city is putting up several more. I actually like them, they really help traffic flow.
The small town I live in is a lumber town. They have recently put in a few roundabouts that have such a tight radius that semis and log trucks can’t possibly negotiate the tight turn. So they made the cubs low enough so truckers can just drive thru the the middle of the roundabout. Turns out the truckers aren’t the only ones driving thru the middle.
I like roundabouts! Like Erik, the ne’er do well, I am familiar with the circles in DC but they do have lights so, they’re sort of roundabouts with training wheels. My first real roundabout experiences in Britain were clockwise, which was counterintuitive to an American driver. OMG! Wrong side of the street and wrong way around.
We have a few roundabouts now in small town Virginia. But the road planners did ever so wisely reverse their decision to put one on the main route in the midst of the rural wineries and breweries near here.
They could not figure out how no stop signs work. They blow through the stop signs and stop at the yields. And if they DO stop at a stop sign they wait 120 seconds for the other motherfucker, who is a half mile away, to stop. And nobody knows what turn signals are.
And get off my lawn!
I have a friend that went to England and got stuck in a roundabout the traffic was so tight and so intense they wouldn’t let him out. So he did what they do, hug a bumper and gas it.
https://youtu.be/iAgX6qlJEMc
Different roundabout
https://youtu.be/KNDIp99raPg
Typical Demonrat liberal fixation, Columbia MO, a town of 160k has 46 of them.
10X as expensive and half as effective.
The phenomenon has morphed to Springfield MO which is getting more purple by the day.
So far KC and STL the other two blue bastions have avoided the plague due to traffic density.
All the stupid things do is cause traffic confusion and accidents but they are oh so European so the commies love them.
I hate liberals, everything they do interferes with and diminishes quality of life…
I lived in UK for a bit…first experience with a roundabout was at Manchester Airport where hubby and I spent probably 6 minutes going around and around and around reading all the exit signs in utter confusion. It was so bad, I can not express adequately how confounded we were! Another time by myself I was on a 4 lane one and I knew which exit I wanted but kept missing it and ended up looping 4 times before I managed to get off the thing. I was laughing because I knew how ridiculous I was but I couldn’t get it right! Now the damned things are popping up here in small town Ohio 😫. Probably cost $2 mil a pop. Glad we have the money to waste on them
All the curbs on our roundabouts are jet black from all the semi trailer tires.
They’re not big enough for trucks but they’re built on trucking routes.
Use Google Earth to take a look at the Charlie Foxtrot at the freeway ramps at Union Gap WA. There are multiples of connected roundabouts that make a Rube Goldberg device look like engineering efficiency in comparison. The local people hate them with a passion. Then look at Lacey WA, same thing. All funded by State grant dollars.
The things are a fucking curse.
@erb
I was probably at the same roundabout as you.
I just got off the plane after an all night flight and my coworker picked me up. I was dozing off in the passenger seat and we entered the roundabout – the opposite direction we do in the US. I almost pee’d myself because I was not expecting to turn left into the circle.
They put a tiny one in the parking lot of the local shopping center here.
It has stop signs !!
The size alone prevents any flow, but having stop signs defeats the purpose of a circle. It’s an intersection you that makes you turn right when 6 feet to the left might be all you need.
When alone I just take that left.
Only a democrat comes up with traffic control so stupid it makes things worse.
Controlling others is their highest desire.
I don’t mind ’em if they’re large enough to give you reaction time. Most round abouts are too small, not designed for the speed of oncoming traffic. Visual distractions in the middle are a hazard. I like to be able to see possible conflicts from approaching vehicles.
Watch the roundabout mistakes videos – sometimes vehicles enter so fast they get launched into the air!
JDHasty, I always felt like I was taking my life into my hands every time I went to Yakima to make deliveries starting at that off ramp in Union Gap and continuing on that very narrow stretch of Hwy. 12 into Yakima. The 1st street exit to go to Ellensburg always had my attention and making sure that I was in the right-hand lane to get to Selah and E burg without going West, I made that mistake once and had to backtrack to get back to the right way to E burg. The ramp off 40th street wasn’t much better either. Whoever designed that miserable stretch of freeway needs to be shot for building such an incredible cluster of lousy freeway design. And going thru Pasco into Richland and Kennewick was always interesting as well until I finally figured out how to get thru the Tri Cities without getting lost.
Traffic circles are developed by lazy Americans trying to ape the EuroTrash maggots who should be moving by train.
Another moronic notion that caught the imaginations of all the Monkey-See; Monkey-Do idiots in government road construction.
The humans should go out at night and dig them up – or dynamite them – but, of course, that’d make the crybabies cry.
Ever notice that the government imposes these monstrosities without any public notice and/or consent?
Just say “NO” … or better yet “HELL NO!”
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
roundabouts are stupid and a waste of taxpayer money
.. just like the concrete partitions for left turn lanes in the middle of the roads and the never ending barricades on the freeways that make it very difficult for 1st responders to get to an accident
I also hate the Hwy. 405 exit off of I 90 going toward Sea Tac. One time I had to go to Sea Tac to pick up a large truckload of flowers late in the afternoon and got stuck in rush hour traffic, it was a major pain in the ass to get to the Sea Tac airport driving a 20-foot box truck. I don’t envy Seattle drivers one damn bit with their heavy, non-stop swiftly moving 24/7 traffic on I 90, 405 and I 5, they can keep it.
@Truth from Fact
That was a good laugh from the Simpson’s round about experience. Thanks!
I like roundabouts because they help move traffic through old four way stops faster. They do have a minimum IQ requirement though; so occasionally some retard feels the need to go thru them in the wrong direction or to stop in the middle of one and back up to get the turn they missed because they’re too goddamn stupid to figure out that they could just take another lap (duh).
I’m in Sarasota too. I can attest to Uncle Al’s observations. They are truly the devil’s workshop epitomized!
We also have what’s called a diverging diamond interchange where the direction of travel is reversed on one road. It’s supposed to help where there are a lot of left turns.
Out in rurrrl America all our traffic circles have tire ruts through the gravel up and over them.
So then they put statues on stone pedestals on top of them. Now the tire ruts break the concrete curb, plow through the gravel and stop in a pile of sparkly bits where the big trucks slam into the stone pedestal.
Personally I like driving motorpickles and my wifes Mr2 around them, but in general….we don’t…. we don’t really do “curves” in Arizona.
When I was twenty, I got stationed in England. I bought a Ford Cortina for $170 and went to a class to earn my 3rd Air Force UK drivers permit. I hit the road and never looked back. I fell in love with roundabouts right away. You have to learn to either accelerate or break to merge smoothly into the traffic already on the roundabout. Once you do, you can get anywhere without stopping. They used them over there because they couldn’t afford traffic signals.
A series of 3 on the Toupal Rd./ Santa Fe Trail overpass on I-25 in Trinidad.
It’s fun watching the pothead tourists try to figure them out.