Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Why Traffic Lights Are an EPIC Mistake" video.

In practice, that's not how that works. Traffic circles are for slower speed intersections like residential streets where they're more of an all way yield. Roundabouts are for higher speed intersections like the ones found on arterial streets. Those have a yield to the folks in the roundabout because that keeps things flowing with as little slow down as possible. Unlike with traffic circles, there is a much higher likelihood of having multiple cars wanting to use the roundabout at the same time. I've literally never heard of people hating traffic circles, because they're so innocuous and are at most a minor inconvenience.
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@milohobo9186 Also, keep in mind that bars are more likely to be on streets that have signaled intersections than ones that aren't signaled.
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We have a few 5 way stops around here and I wish they'd just suck it up and convert them to roundabouts as there's plenty of space for that when you're having effectively 2.5 roads intersecting. There's also a funky one not far from where I live which is a sort of weird 6 way stop, 6 ways if you include the private driveway that leads to a few houses. It functions normally from 5 of those directions,but from one of those directions to are immediately dumped at another stop sign with no indication about what you're supposed to do. Had they had competent engineers involved either the stop line would have been further back or they would have made it some sort of roundabout. Or possibly made that street one way only.
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I've noticed a few yellow lights lately that are so short that if you don't immediately slam on your brakes in moderate traffic you can't clear the intersection before the light turns red. IMHO, all yellow lights should be at least a specific time based on the expected traffic speed just so that that doesn't happen.
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@kayl456jenna Yes, they share a very superficial similarity, but they're different. A traffic circle is basically just an all way stop that prevents you from speeding through it without slowing to see if there's anybody on your right. It works relatively well with side streets where there usually isn't anybody coming. A roundabout is designed so that the traffic does keep flowing most of the time and you're yielding to traffic in the circle rather than traffic entering the circle. They're two different things to solve two different, but related, problems.
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That's roughly how we started getting them. They were mostly being installed in rural areas because people would think they didn't need to stop when there's rarely any cross traffic. There was the space, so eventually they started installing roundabouts so that there was a much lessened chance of people killing each other in a t-bone collision at 50mph.
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@nathanbanks2354 Yes, around here we've had traffic circles for decades, but proper roundabouts have been rather rare. The way it's been working is that DOT has been installing roundabouts in more rural areas and it's been creeping closer and closer to the local major city. It's not really by design so much as that's where they have the land available without having to tear down any buildings. But, it's had the effect of priming some portion of the driving population to know how to handle them. There's supposed to be a couple going in near me near a freeway on ramp, so I'm looking forward to that as that bit of road is super annoying. The left lane is usually clogged up with people trying to get onto the freeway, but you have to drive the road relatively frequently to know that. The proposed turbo roundabout should make the situation a lot less confusing as either lane would be useful in terms of going straight, but the left lane would be straight or left and the right would be straight or right. And since there's only traffic entering from 3 sides off them and exiting from 3 sides, it's relatively intuitive as only one street requires the ability to drive straight through rather than both..
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@Lipi19821 Perhaps it's due to space, but most of the roundabouts I see getting installed are too small for that. They generally have a smooth curb that allows larger trucks to drive right over the top if need be.
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Those are traffic circles, they do function like tiny one lane roundabouts, but they're usually a bit different in terms of having plantings and you usually being able to proceed straight through.
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TBH, I've started driving through roundabouts more regularly as there have been more of them moving closer and closer to the city, and most people seem to understand how to use them now. The biggest issue I have is with assholes that speed to get in there as quickly as possible and still expect for traffic to yield to them, even though they were nowhere near the roundabout when I entered. As in I could see them in the distance, and they were driving so fast that within the couple seconds it took me to pull out they were now in the roundabout and expecting to be yielded to.
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The signs are fine, it's mostly the newer more international designs that they've created that are an issue.
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Yes, and not just that you have to recognize that intersections with a traffic signal are also typically roads that are driven at a higher speed. The residential streets rarely have a traffic signal and are by law default speed limit of 25. The signaled intersections are by default 30mph. On top of that they may have speed limits of up to 50mph for traffic signals in rural areas. But, most of the time the signaled intersections have somewhere between 5 and 15mph of extra speed allowed by sign. On top of that, though the roads are more likely to be engineered in ways that encourage faster driving via more lanes and items to gauge ones speeds further away making it feel like you're driving slower than you are.
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@mileselam641 But, that's not traffic signals, part of the issue is that signals, but part of the issue is how the drivers treat the signals. If there's insufficient traffic signals or the yellow lights are inappopriately timed, it's going to cause a lack of compliance. Around here, folks usually do stop for yellow lights appropriately. In other areas folks may be expected to run red lights as a normal thing.
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We've had that in my part of the US for many decades. We refer to them as traffic circles, and they do function a bit like an extremely small roundabout. They usually have a small tree or similar to block visibility to the road ahead to encourage people to slow down, as if the relatively large size of the traffic circle to the size of the total intersection doesn't already.
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@brendanpowell8184 Do they have trees and bushes planted in them? The ones around here do, and it makes it rather hard for people to try to drive too quickly through.
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Slowing is part of it, but I'd argue that reducing the angle between the cars from 90 degrees to something closer to 30-40 degrees has a massive impact.
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That's effectively what Seattle did decades ago for many residential streets. The traffic circles are more or less that, except with a 6' circle in the middle that's planted with a tree and some bushes. It effectively turns it into an all way stop, except without the need to actually stop if there's nobody coming from your right.
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Yes and I know of one "intersection" near me that's effectively 2 intersections that are dangerously close to each other. A round about would make the whole thing a lot less confusing s theres' 2 streets crossing, another street intersecting a car length from that intersection and a private driveway that also intersects the intersection. It's a massive mess and just putting in a simple roundabout would make the whole thing a lot less confusing. Even making it a traffic circle would make it a lot better.
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