It's not our fault; it's you stupid drivers:
Worried about the number of traffic accidents at Avon's first roundabout, town officials are urging motorists to learn better skills for driving through it.
Fourteen accidents have happened at the roundabout since it opened in November at Dan Jones Road and County Road 100 South, including four in February. That's the same number of accidents at that intersection during the six months before the roundabout's opening.
"There's not a problem with the design, it's just the way people are using it," said Ryan Cannon, the town's public works director.
Is that what public service means -- just throw the stuff out there and hope the people figure out how to use it? Jeez. We were lucky enough in this neck of the woods to get the city's first (I believe) traffic circle several years ago, out on Old Mill Road. And in the city's press release announcing it, nobody bothered to explain how to use it. Basically, anybody still outside the circle has to yield to anybody already in it; the idea is to slow and calm traffic. It sure works that way for me -- the thing is so annoying I don't even go that way anymore.
Comments
My family has gone to Hilton Head every other Christmas since about 1976. As far back as I can remember, they had traffic circles on the island. As a kid, riding in the car, I thought they were pretty neat. But, ever since I've had to drive them, I've gotten just a little bit tense any time I have to go into one. I don't think I've ever been particularly close to getting into an accident, but somehow I feel as if I am.
You guys would REALLY get confused in Angola! Oddly enough we don't have that many wrecks in our "circle", mostly just semi's scraping the roundabout curb.....
...And forget Philly, where along Holme Avenue, they have FOUR "circles" along just a five mile route!
How hard can it be to comprehend a CIRCLE, for God's sake???
Easy way to remember:
(Leo gets it, btw)
A vehicle IN the circle (roundabout to you Hoosiers) has the RIGHT-OF-WAY, and ANY traffic coming INTO said circle HAS TO YIELD, until the vehicle(s) is/are past. Then they can MERGE into the flow (hopefully in the correct direction).
Then again, we DO have drivers that haven't gotten down the "square" gig (every OTHER intersection)yet, so imagine their befuddlement when we toss them something that "has no corners" to it?
I say let's make GEOMETRY a mandatory requirement when getting a license, 'cause they're sure not paying attention in school!
;)
B.G.