The Calgary Herald says that City officials are considering building roundabouts as a solution to problems at 4-way stops and traffic lights.
Well, I suppose they’ve got to move into the 20th Century at some point – let’s hope they make it quickly into the 21st, where the rest of us are!
I do find the comments of a former driving instructor (Nicole McWhinney) amusing:
As long as everybody knows what they’re doing, everything is predictable, As soon as somebody’s unpredictable, then it causes chaos.
Yes. And as long as people are taught properly – and penalised if they behave “unpredictably” – then any road system works.
When I’m doing roundabout lessons with pupils, I often do my “History of…” routine, starting with when people rode in ox-carts between villages, moving on to horse-drawn carriages and horses, then the first motor vehicles, and going through crossroads, traffic light-controlled crossroads, roundabouts, and finishing with traffic light-controlled roundabouts. I haven’t got a clue if it’s historically correct (it’s near enough for my purposes), but it works.
A roundabout is merely a junction – often, a far less complicated one than one with loads of lights, stop signs, and areas you can’t enter. Countries which have steered clear of roundabouts have probably forced themselves into a bit of a corner, since normal light-controlled junctions can only deal with heavy traffic to a limited extent. They face the problem now that a roundabout might not actually help as much as they’d like.