A "fun" encounter earlier today

[BSRU]

How does one navigate that thing?

It's easy, as fast as possible with your eyes closed .

It is actually very straightforward, once you have been across a couple of times you get used to it.

 

[Digital_Cowboy]

It's easy, as fast as possible with your eyes closed .

I think that I've dealt with a few intersections over here like that.

It is actually very straightforward, once you have been across a couple of times you get used to it.

Experience is the key to everything.

 

[Cardiac]

I guess the US have their own way of confusing non-US residents - the four-way-stop (I think it's called), where all four entrances to a cross roads effectively give way to each other. It confused the hell out of me when I first came to one just outside Houston a few years back.

 

[Digital_Cowboy]

I guess the US have their own way of confusing non-US residents - the four-way-stop (I think it's called), where all four entrances to a cross roads effectively give way to each other. It confused the hell out of me when I first came to one just outside Houston a few years back.

Was it a traffic light or stop sign controlled intersection? Actually having grown up with them I don't have any problems with them.

 

[Cardiac]

Just four stop signs, the problem then being who goes first.

 

[Digital_Cowboy]

Just four stop signs, the problem then being who goes first.

Normally, he who got there first. But at times people will fall all over themselves being polite and trying to let the other guy go first. sometimes thy'll do so when the party that was there second (or last) is a cyclist.

One such example of that is when I am leaving the pet shop after getting crickets to feed my spiders. While I am clipping in motorists will almost invariably yield to me. And I will wave them on, as I would much rather choose when I take off vs. allowing someone else to decide for me when it is safe to do so.

 

[Red Light]

Normally, he who got there first. But at times people will fall all over themselves being polite and trying to let the other guy go first.

Whereas in the UK there'd be a pile up in the centre, each arguing that it was their turn and the others should have given way.

 

[Svendo]

Normally, he who got there first. But at times people will fall all over themselves being polite and trying to let the other guy go first. sometimes thy'll do so when the party that was there second (or last) is a cyclist.

One such example of that is when I am leaving the pet shop after getting crickets to feed my spiders. While I am clipping in motorists will almost invariably yield to me. And I will wave them on, as I would much rather choose when I take off vs. allowing someone else to decide for me when it is safe to do so.

Four way stops are almost the equivalent of the mini roundabout but without the white circle in the middle. Give way to the right (so strictly speaking it's in a sense opposite as they drive on the wrong side in the US ) , first one there goes. When you have a queue at each entrance the traffic goes one at a time in a clockwise fashion. Or it would if people knew how to use the things. Quite often at mini roundabouts I see the who goes next? hesitation when everyone waits as the one who should go is over cautious. If I'm confident I've been seen I usually set off thinking, "right, I'll go then".

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

The only real problem that I have with roundabouts or as they're commonly called over on this side of the pound traffic circles. Is that they "eat" up a lot of real estate. Compared to a regular intersection.

Surely that can't be a huge problem over there! Have you seen our land prices?

 

[Digital_Cowboy]

Whereas in the UK there'd be a pile up in the centre, each arguing that it was their turn and the others should have given way.

"Knock wood" that generally doesn't happen here. If people are feeling polite eventually someone will go ahead and go. And kind of surprisingly more and more motorists are being polite and allowing the cyclist was at the intersection first to proceed. Occasionally I'll still run into motorists who don't, but they seem to be fewer and farther between.

 

[Digital_Cowboy]

Four way stops are almost the equivalent of the mini roundabout but without the white circle in the middle.

Yeah, I can kind of see that. And given how some are suggesting installing dedicated cycle lanes here that would more or less turn them into roundabouts.

Give way to the right (so strictly speaking it's in a sense opposite as they drive on the wrong side in the US ) , first one there goes. When you have a queue at each entrance the traffic goes one at a time in a clockwise fashion. Or it would if people knew how to use the things. Quite often at mini roundabouts I see the who goes next? hesitation when everyone waits as the one who should go is over cautious. If I'm confident I've been seen I usually set off thinking, "right, I'll go then".

Yeah, I can see how (if one isn't use to them) that it can be confusing.

 

[Digital_Cowboy]

Surely that can't be a huge problem over there! Have you seen our land prices?

Actually it can be given that in order to install a roundabout they have to tear up the existing intersection. People don't want to have to give up more of their property to have a roundabout. Plus there's the concern that emergency vehicles not being able to get through.

Plus what happens if the city or county or state decides to put a statue, or fountain or some other decoration in the middle of the roundabout/traffic circle that blocks the sight lines?

 

[515mm]

Ah now, some of our roundabouts are so successful at keeping traffic moving, some local govts actually erect barriers in sight lines in order to slow down the traffic from some directions. This is done to give traffic in poorly sighted and less heavily trafficked lanes a chance to enter the RAB!

This is particularly annoying for me, as one of these barriers is so close to a RAB in a 40mph zone, I usually have to unclip and stop. I then have to rise, balance, clip in and accelerate away before the next car comes round the corner, all the time feeling the pressure of traffic behind which has been forced to slow by the barrier and now has 'one of those bloody cyclists in the way.' British drivers are a very impatient bunch.

Before "Highways" installed the barrier, I could time my entrance to this very busy RAB, enter it at 20mph+ and be off it and out of danger in five seconds flat. 'Course if they'd cut down the bushes/trees in the centre of the RAB, everyone would have equally good sight lines and maybe the young lad who lost his life there 2 years ago when he struck a tree might still be alive.

 

[Digital_Cowboy]

Ah now, some of our roundabouts are so successful at keeping traffic moving, some local govts actually erect barriers in sight lines in order to slow down the traffic from some directions. This is done to give traffic in poorly sighted and less heavily trafficked lanes a chance to enter the RAB!

This is particularly annoying for me, as one of these barriers is so close to a RAB in a 40mph zone, I usually have to unclip and stop. I then have to rise, balance, clip in and accelerate away before the next car comes round the corner, all the time feeling the pressure of traffic behind which has been forced to slow by the barrier and now has 'one of those bloody cyclists in the way.' British drivers are a very impatient bunch.

Before "Highways" installed the barrier, I could time my entrance to this very busy RAB, enter it at 20mph+ and be off it and out of danger in five seconds flat. 'Course if they'd cut down the bushes/trees in the centre of the RAB, everyone would have equally good sight lines and maybe the young lad who lost his life there 2 years ago when he struck a tree might still be alive.

Don't ya love it when the government takes something that is working and "tweeks" it to improve it, thus breaking it and making it worse than it was and doesn't need to be.

Also don't ya love it when it takes multiple death's over several years before they'll do anything to fix a dangerous situation?