I don't like roundabouts.
I get they're pretty handy for the urban planner who has traffic coming from different directions, say four, and wants to keep traffic flowing without a four-way stop. And in reality, they're okay, if everyone is taking their turn, like at a four-way stop.
Unfortunately, there's always those people who think their time is more precious than yours. They don't want to wait. Sometimes, they'll just stare at you as they enter right in front of you as if you're invisible. Other times, they won't even bother to look—they just press the gas pedal a little harder and expect you to avoid crashing into them.
So, for the civil engineer, they might be the cat's meow, but for those of us who have to use them, too many times, there aren't very civil at all.
Tijuana
I've had bouts with roundabouts throughout my life. The very first encounter was in Tijuana. We were down in Southern California visiting some of my wife's family, and decided to go see an uncle of hers across the border. I think he had some kind of shop and she wanted to see about getting something cheaper there than she could in America.
We'd driven down from Oregon, so we had our own car and I was driving. I'd only been in Mexico once up to that point—down in a suburb of Mexico City to meet her grandparents and family for the first time. I didn't do any driving then.
I shouldn't have been driving in Tijuana, either.
I assume there are traffic laws down there, but no one obeys them, and as far as I know, no one enforces them. There's also the propensity to make two lanes into four. I'm pretty sure that's what was happening as we went to enter the roundabout.
I being a lawful abiding American citizen waited to enter the roundabout as cars four deep whizzed by. I wasn't really even sure where I was going, so I planned on staying in the outer lane so I could get out.
Well, it took a while to get in. Meanwhile, cars behind me, instead of waiting, decided to go on around, as if I were stalled or something. They didn't seem to mind risking life and limb at all. Finally, I managed to just close my eyes and shoot into the traffic. Miraculously, no one hit us or vice versa.
My wife wasn't very happy that it took me so long to get in, wasn't very happy with the way others were driving, and basically wasn't very happy about any of it. Neither was I, but I wasn't about to take any blame for it. It wasn't like it was my uncle I wanted to go see for some bargain that I don't think we even got. I'm pretty sure we can back empty handed.
Getting into the roundabout turned out to be the easy part. You couldn't just hang in the outer lane because it would force you to turn before you wanted to. So, I moved in a lane, and we ended up going around more than once. That didn't make my wife happy either. I don't think we went around more than one extra time when I just basically gunned it, swerved like a maniac and we took the proper exit to the the street we wanted.
Funny thing was, on the way back, we didn't go through the roundabout, so somehow I managed to avoid it.
Orange County
When we lived in Southern California, there was a roundabout on the other side of town where we lived. Fortunately, we didn't need to use it that often, but every once in a while we would head in that direction.
This one was two lane, because similarly to the one in Tijuana, you needed to go in to avoid making a turn before you wanted to. While much calmer than the Tijuana way of driving, there was still people you needed to maneuver around to get to your destination. Depending on their experience with roundabouts, they were either inept or insane—both were too dangerous for my tastes.
As I said, fortunately, we didn't need to go that way very often, and if we did, I'd prefer to go a roundabout way to avoid the roundabout.
The Next Town Over
Within the last five years, a well-traveled intersection heading in and out of downtown was changed from a two lane with a median in between, and traffic entering and crossing from four main access points, to the roundabout.
Now, I wasn't overly fond of the way it was set up, but if you were coming straight in and heading downtown, you generally had no problems. The same coming back. It was the side streets trying to enter that did have some issues, but for me, it wasn't that big of a deal. There was some traffic, but for the most part, it wasn't tough to navigate.
Enter, the roundabout.
It does depend on the time of day, but I'll find myself waiting quite a while to 'take my turn.' It's only one lane, and so you enter and exit from it. It's a lot easier to do that than the others I've described, it just can take you longer to get in, and once you are in, then you need to avoid the knucklehead that decides they want to attempt inhabiting the same space you're about to inhabit.
I suppose I could try to avoid it, but when I'm working, I'm not looking to waste time or miles going all the way around to the other side of town. So, I grin and bear it. I've tried coming in from different sides, but it doesn't seem to matter which I pick, while before the roundabout, as I mentioned earlier, some directions were simply easier to access than others.
There are two other roundabouts within, or just outside the city limits now. One I rarely use, and the other is just a tick above it. Both have lighter traffic, so it wouldn't be so bad if I did.
I hope that's it. I don't need anymore roundabouts.
I can think of another spot, thought, that the civil engineers might take a crack at one day. It's by an overpass, so there might not be room enough to do it without somehow changing the flow of traffic on the freeway. As it is, if you're heading north on the two lane road and want to go under the overpass, you have to cross a lane of traffic, then wait at a stop that is only two cars deep at best (because otherwise you're hanging out in the middle of the lane you just crossed) to, guess what, wait for the cars coming in the lane that you just crossed to see if they're going the same way you are.
So, the southbound folks can make the turn without stopping, but the northbound can't. Not only that, but while you're waiting there, traffic can be coming straight at you from the other side of the overpass, so you can sit there for a while waiting for cars to clear. Once you get under the overpass and heading west, there's another street where the northbound makes a stop, and then you have the southbound lane that makes a curve there and could either continue east where people are coming from the otherside of the overpass (the side I described first), or make the turn and continue southbound.
That intersection, I think, might benefit from a traffic light. As it is, it's a fairly rural area, and while there's plenty of different directions to come from, traffic is thankfully light enough at most times on most days to get through without waiting for too long.
You just need to keep your head on a swivel.
Kind of like in the roundabout.
Images source—Pixabay