Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and there's nobody else.
Speaker 1: Because this is just pitiful man ghost producers left and right.
Speaker 1: It doesn't bump you out to be I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: come out and admit it, yes, a little bit. It
Speaker 1: just it just makes the whole thing feel so workman
Speaker 1: like and unimportant. You know. Yeah, with just you and
Speaker 1: me in here, it's uh, I mean, I'm happy to
Speaker 1: be here with you, but you know, like like, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just just another thing that has to
Speaker 1: be done. Record Josh and Chuck. It's not an event anymore.
Speaker 1: You know. There's no streamers like there used to be.
Speaker 1: Nobody cares well. Luckily the people who are listening care, yes,
Speaker 1: and you really have to care. If you listened to
Speaker 1: an episode about roundabouts, you know, it's funny that you
Speaker 1: picked this one because just two days ago, it's driving home,
Speaker 1: I went through a roundabout in uh, the neighborhood of
Speaker 1: Lake Claire, Okay, and I was like, I love roundabouts.
Speaker 1: I love roundabouts. I wish Atlanta had more in Atlanta
Speaker 1: has its a decent amount. Now, a lot of them newer.
Speaker 1: But I was just thinking about how much I loved roundabouts,
Speaker 1: and the next day you said, let's do one on roundabouts.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting, man, Yeah, that is I like that
Speaker 1: kind of um uh not syncretism. That's where Catholicism and
Speaker 1: indigenous religious beliefs merge. I can't remember what it's called,
Speaker 1: but um synchronicity, that's what it is. I like that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So I'm right there with you, man.
Speaker 1: I love round about two. And here's why. To me.
Speaker 1: The second worst thing in the world after slow driving
Speaker 1: people in the fast lane, which, by the way, you
Speaker 1: can see my Twitter feed Josh underscore um underscore Clark
Speaker 1: for how I feel about um slow drivers in the
Speaker 1: fast lane. I haven't. I have a feeling. I know
Speaker 1: what you're about to say, but go ahead. The second,
Speaker 1: the second worst thing that could possibly happen to a
Speaker 1: human being is to sit there at a red light
Speaker 1: when there's no traffic coming. Okay, that's not what I
Speaker 1: thought you were gonna say. What did you think I
Speaker 1: was gonna say? I thought you were gonna say people
Speaker 1: who do not know how to manage a four way
Speaker 1: stop sign. Stop. Uh, that the third, I'll put that third. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, I'll put that third. Man. Yeah. It is
Speaker 1: annoying sitting at a traffic light, and it's even more
Speaker 1: annoying these days when you sit for an extra three
Speaker 1: seconds at every stop light because everyone is just finishing
Speaker 1: up that email. Oh man, Yeah, that drives me crazy.
Speaker 1: I do. I'm so quick on the horn now. I
Speaker 1: used to be very polite and just like a little hey,
Speaker 1: you might not notice tap tap, But now when I
Speaker 1: see that head down, I just lay it on thick.
Speaker 1: I cannot tell you how proud I am of you
Speaker 1: right now. It's really like, I love it, and I
Speaker 1: usually screen some expletive attached to you. Get off your phone, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you are really coming along, buddy, appreciated. Remember. I remember
Speaker 1: one time when we were driving together years and years ago,
Speaker 1: and I was doing I was like shouting at people
Speaker 1: and stuff, and You're like, really, we're doing this, and
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, it's in this normal. And then
Speaker 1: now to hear that you're you're doing the same thing,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad. I'm actually dialing it back. Apparently, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of transferred over and made its way to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it's one of those things. Like um. Anger
Speaker 1: in a car can neither be created nor destroyed. It
Speaker 1: just goes from person to person. I just got no
Speaker 1: patience for cell phones and driving none. Agree, I'm over it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's another great thing. It's a it's a great thing,
Speaker 1: slash dangerous thing about introducing roundabouts. The idea that people
Speaker 1: are on their phones now more than ever while they're driving. Um.
Speaker 1: Which again, if you're doing that, just just just stop,
Speaker 1: just stop. That's so dangerous, it's so reckless and irresponsible.
Speaker 1: Stop doing that. Okay. The problem is is if you
Speaker 1: if you have people on phones and you introduce roundabouts,
Speaker 1: it's good and it's bad. It's a double edged sword.
Speaker 1: It's good because if they have even a shred of
Speaker 1: survival instinct, they'll just drop their phone right to the
Speaker 1: floorboard and grab the wheel with both hands and terror
Speaker 1: and panic because suddenly something is different and they have
Speaker 1: to really pay attention. That's one of the great things
Speaker 1: about a roundabout. It makes you pay attention. Right. The
Speaker 1: problem ideally, if you don't have that survival instinct and
Speaker 1: you don't drop your phone, then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: conditions suddenly change and you might find yourself in an
Speaker 1: accident with somebody else. Fortune, at least roundabouts their designs
Speaker 1: so that the accident will be minimal compared to one
Speaker 1: that you may have gotten into at a lighted intersection,
Speaker 1: for sure. However, there is a newer roundabout over an
Speaker 1: Emery Village. I don't know if you've seen that one yet,
Speaker 1: And that Emory Villages is tough because it was a
Speaker 1: needed one because it's I don't know how many points.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a like one of those kind
Speaker 1: of weird five way intersections. So those kinds of intersections
Speaker 1: are screaming for roundabouts, so they finally built one. It's
Speaker 1: very pretty, very functional. But just yesterday I was driving
Speaker 1: through that one, thinking I love roundabouts, and this dude
Speaker 1: just barreled through and did not yield, almost hit me. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I had a few choice words for him. But
Speaker 1: I'm like, roundabouts to me are so intuitive. Our article
Speaker 1: says are counterintuitive. I disagree. I did too. I think
Speaker 1: there's nothing more intuitive than not to just go barreling
Speaker 1: into a worldly go round circle of cars, which this
Speaker 1: guy did, right, But what's What's ironic is if if
Speaker 1: he had done that, and say like the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: in the United States, he would have been in the right,
Speaker 1: you would have been in the wrong, which is just
Speaker 1: crazy to me when I did that. Do you want
Speaker 1: to do you want to start with some history about roundabouts, because,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, everybody they have some history. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, should we quickly say what they are? We're
Speaker 1: doing that thing again? You're right? So a roundabout is
Speaker 1: um frequently called a traffic circle over in the UK,
Speaker 1: and I think in other parts of Europe they call
Speaker 1: it a gyratory, a one way gyratory um and sometimes
Speaker 1: previously they were called rotaries. But what it is is
Speaker 1: it is a instead of an intersection where say two
Speaker 1: or more roads cross, rather than just having it be
Speaker 1: all right angles, you take that intersection and kind of
Speaker 1: break it out and put a circle in the middle.
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, everybody going through that
Speaker 1: intersection has to go around the circle. Whether you want
Speaker 1: to go right, straight, left, or do you turn, you've
Speaker 1: got a circle to to circumnavigate. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons to do this. It slows people down, it
Speaker 1: makes them pay attention, ideally, UM, it cuts down on
Speaker 1: congestion and UM, I think it's just much safer than
Speaker 1: a lighted intersection. So that's that's what a roundabout is
Speaker 1: a round about specifically. Also, Chuck, it's a UM it's
Speaker 1: a specific kind of This traffic implementation has has specific
Speaker 1: traits that we'll talk about that make it unique among
Speaker 1: traffic flow management things involving circles, which I think is
Speaker 1: the technical term. Yeah, like if you don't have them
Speaker 1: in your town, which is possible. We'll get to some
Speaker 1: USA stats at some point, but you can think of
Speaker 1: as a tiny little circular expressway with different exits yea,
Speaker 1: all along the way. So as you approach one, if
Speaker 1: you want to go straight, if you want to just
Speaker 1: keep going straight, you have to enter the roundabout and
Speaker 1: go halfway around and then take your little exit to
Speaker 1: continue straight. If you want to take a left, then
Speaker 1: you have to drive all the way around the circle
Speaker 1: and then get off taking a right. If that makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this article says it's a two hundred and seventy degree turn.
Speaker 1: Yeah that that that that tracks. I think I won't
Speaker 1: contest that. Uh, all right, so I think we can
Speaker 1: do history now. Man, that was a really great description
Speaker 1: of a roundabout man, which with the tiny uh circular expressway. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: we have the perimeter here in Atlanta, like a lot
Speaker 1: of city sub perimeters around the city, and this is
Speaker 1: just like a tiny little perimeter. Yeah. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: that's a really good way to put it. Thanks. So. Um,
Speaker 1: if we're going back to the beginning of roundabouts, most
Speaker 1: people would expect to find them in Europe, because everybody's
Speaker 1: seen National Lampoon's European Vacation with the very famous roundabout scene. Right. Um. Actually,
Speaker 1: the first contours of what would become roundabouts are found
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. In Europe's defense, they were designed
Speaker 1: by a European, Pierre Loenfont, who designed Washington d C.
Speaker 1: He actually worked in some traffic circles, which is weird
Speaker 1: because there was no such thing as cars at the
Speaker 1: end of the eighteenth century, so it's very odd that
Speaker 1: he worked traffic circles in But by god, he worked
Speaker 1: in traffic circles. There were horses and buggies. Imagine there
Speaker 1: was I wonder if there was horse and buggy traffic, surely, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not sure why he created these circles.
Speaker 1: If it wasn't for traffic flow, or if it wasn't
Speaker 1: just for aesthetics, It's possible it was for aesthetics to
Speaker 1: although it was probably some weirdo Mason thing that has
Speaker 1: to do with taking over the world in five centuries
Speaker 1: from now or something. I just think it's funny. I
Speaker 1: never really thought about uh in a big city like Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. In the eight hundreds, sitting in a long
Speaker 1: line of horse and buggy traffic, like, oh, for God's sakes,
Speaker 1: this guy, this guy in front of me, he's sitting
Speaker 1: there writing a writing a letter with a with a
Speaker 1: fountain band right settle the used to settle the get
Speaker 1: off your paper, Get off your paper. They'd have a quill,
Speaker 1: is what it is? Yeah, what I say, fountain pin?
Speaker 1: Yeah No, you said ballpoint. I think I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: you said baldpoint. We'll rewind and find out one day.
Speaker 1: So du Pont Circle the very famous and beautiful and
Speaker 1: I really like that area of d C. DuPont Circle
Speaker 1: is was, I believe, kind of the first big one
Speaker 1: in the United States, right, yes, And so people say, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, whatever year lam Font designed one in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And that's that's that's it. That that became
Speaker 1: the first one later on, But that doesn't really count
Speaker 1: because he wasn't really anticipating cars. So surely the first
Speaker 1: one really is in Europe, right it? Actually, no, that's
Speaker 1: not correct either. No, in nineteen o five Brian Eno,
Speaker 1: Oh wait, not Brian Eno, his brother Bill, Yeah, Bill
Speaker 1: william Eno. Uh, in nineteen o five constructed He was
Speaker 1: a businessman, and I don't think he constructed it, but
Speaker 1: he designed at least and implemented the very famous Columbus
Speaker 1: Circle in New York City, which everyone, as far as
Speaker 1: automy automobiles go, consider the first traffic circle in the
Speaker 1: United States. Yes, so definitively the first traffic circle, the
Speaker 1: first circular means of directing traffic around a circle circularly
Speaker 1: four cars, right, it finds it's its place in history
Speaker 1: in nine you know, five in New York City. And
Speaker 1: then the first one came in in the UK at least,
Speaker 1: if not Europe, four years later. Um, the British one
Speaker 1: way gyratory uh in Letchworth Garden City. That's adorable, Letchworth
Speaker 1: Garden City. Doesn't it make you feel like everybody dresses
Speaker 1: like undertakers there and they have like you know, like
Speaker 1: claw fingers or something. Letchworth welcomed with. Yeah. So uh okay,
Speaker 1: So finally Europe gets on board with the traffic circle
Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century. Yeah. We should point out
Speaker 1: though that with those earlier roundabouts, uh, they were not
Speaker 1: like we see today. They didn't have this gradual sort
Speaker 1: of flow emotion. It was sort of a circle with
Speaker 1: the sharp right angles where you enter an exit, which
Speaker 1: is is not flowy an intuitive, No, it's not. And
Speaker 1: there's this other thing too, so um if around about,
Speaker 1: so you can kind of interchange roundabout and traffic circle
Speaker 1: and then something else called rotary. It's all a circle
Speaker 1: where traffic is meant to go basically one way around it,
Speaker 1: and there's exits that are actually streets that form up
Speaker 1: the intersection. Right, All of those things have that element,
Speaker 1: those elements in common where what the differences between like
Speaker 1: rotaries and traffic circles and roundabouts is the rules. Right,
Speaker 1: So when they when traffic really started and people started
Speaker 1: building these, especially in America and the in Europe, um,
Speaker 1: like in the twenties, thirties, forties, when they really started
Speaker 1: to begin to take off, the rules were different, and
Speaker 1: they had it dead wrong. And it was a really simple,
Speaker 1: a really simple traffic rule that they had going on
Speaker 1: that was screwing everything up. And what it was was
Speaker 1: that if you were in the traffic circle, if somebody
Speaker 1: was eating to get in the traffics circle, you yielded
Speaker 1: to the person coming into the circle. It's just so backwards,
Speaker 1: literally backwards, totally backwards. They basically had a fifty fifty
Speaker 1: chance of coming up with the right rule, and they
Speaker 1: chose the wrong way. And for decades people got nightmare
Speaker 1: headaches from traffic circles, which back then were called rotaries. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they had congestion, they had a lot of accidents. And
Speaker 1: this was in the like nineteen thirties through the mid
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. For close to thirty years, they were just like, well,
Speaker 1: we just can't figure out what's wrong here. There's just
Speaker 1: something wrong and I can't put my finger. It's crazy. Finally,
Speaker 1: in England in nineteen sixty six they went, why don't
Speaker 1: we just reverse that and reverse the yield. That's literally
Speaker 1: all they had to do was you as you approach
Speaker 1: a traffic circle, you are yielding. Once you're in the
Speaker 1: traffic circle. You're fine, and that chain everything changed everything
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, like they had they used to
Speaker 1: have to call in cops to undo the gridlock that
Speaker 1: would form in these traffic circles because of this um
Speaker 1: and they changed this this flow of traffic pattern. The
Speaker 1: old one was called we've theory, where the people in
Speaker 1: the circle would stop and the people coming in would
Speaker 1: would weave into whatever lane they wanted to. It was
Speaker 1: just madness. And then they went to gap theory, which
Speaker 1: is you basically get in where you fit in when
Speaker 1: you're coming into the circle, and everybody else in the
Speaker 1: circles like, just get out of my way. I'm in
Speaker 1: the circle. I've got the right of way. And like
Speaker 1: you said, it changed everything, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: these um like delays and congestion dropped by like half overnight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: capacity increased by crashes and delays decreased by and everyone went, wow,
Speaker 1: I can't believe it took us thirty years to think
Speaker 1: of this. Yes, and it took off big time in
Speaker 1: Britain after that. But because of the hullabaloo in the
Speaker 1: United States previously, there was a long time where the
Speaker 1: US was like another you know, twenty plus years where
Speaker 1: the US was still like, na, I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: falling for this traffic circle thing again. Yeah, because I
Speaker 1: mean they had built rotaries all over the place in
Speaker 1: the United States, but they they worked so poorly because
Speaker 1: of that one stupid rule that by the time America
Speaker 1: gave up on it and the time Britain picked up
Speaker 1: on that rule change, America had said like we're done
Speaker 1: with these. They they were actually tearing out their old
Speaker 1: rotaries and putting in um new for you know, for uh,
Speaker 1: like a traffic lighted intersection. Like we marched down with
Speaker 1: their pitchforks and their torches and stop signs, and they
Speaker 1: and jackhammers destroyed these traffic circles and smash stop signs
Speaker 1: through human bodies into the ground. It took I think
Speaker 1: and OHI, California lovely, OHI. Uh, that was a proposal
Speaker 1: for just a little three legged roundabout, and everyone in
Speaker 1: OHI is pretty laid back area. They were like no,
Speaker 1: and so they didn't do it. And then two years later,
Speaker 1: finally in Summerland, Nevada, everybody, I'm sorry Nevada, everybody got
Speaker 1: on board. And I think they had a couple of
Speaker 1: them in a planned community there. Well, that's why I
Speaker 1: think it went through is because the community was being
Speaker 1: built from the ground up, so there was nobody to
Speaker 1: say no. So they were just they moved in and
Speaker 1: they were there. So so that was nine when America
Speaker 1: got its first actual roundabout. And again it's because of
Speaker 1: that one stupid rule that had just plagued everybody and
Speaker 1: driven them crazy starting in the thirties up to about
Speaker 1: the fifties. And I saw one other reason why America
Speaker 1: didn't have roundabouts tu chuck um after World War Two,
Speaker 1: when Eisenhower was over there, Um he saw a lot
Speaker 1: of gridlock in Paris, especially around the Plasta Plasta till Gyratory,
Speaker 1: the one that's around the Lark de Triomph, you know,
Speaker 1: which is huge. It's like a twelve lane traffic circle.
Speaker 1: And he saw it was gridlocked all the time. But
Speaker 1: then he saw in Germany how fast the Auto bonn
Speaker 1: had gotten the Nazis around. So America got interstates instead
Speaker 1: of traffic circles. Because Eisenhower was basically the architect of
Speaker 1: America's interstate system. Oh wow, that was the other reason.
Speaker 1: I saw another thing. I was reading an article in
Speaker 1: UH I think I can't remember where it was, but
Speaker 1: it was basically like why it might have been priceonomics,
Speaker 1: why America has been so reticent and there is another theory,
Speaker 1: uh that this one and this was a bit I
Speaker 1: don't know. They call it controversial. It's really not that
Speaker 1: big of a deal, but they say the roundabout is
Speaker 1: said to have flourished in Britain because it requires the
Speaker 1: British virtues of compromising cooperation. And they said the US
Speaker 1: is more aggressive and confrontational in culture and may explain
Speaker 1: why the roundabout has not been more widely adopted. M yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is a group cooperation moving through a roundabout,
Speaker 1: for sure, Whereas with a traffic light, it's the traffic
Speaker 1: light says stop, the traffic light says go, and all
Speaker 1: you have to do is know whether you're allowed to,
Speaker 1: whether you have the right away or not to punch
Speaker 1: it right. And I actually saw there's a there's something
Speaker 1: called the UK Roundabout Appreciation Society's the guy who runs
Speaker 1: that says that traffic lights are fascist because they tell
Speaker 1: you to stop or go it any given point in time,
Speaker 1: whereas a roundabout is much more group cooperative and people
Speaker 1: make their own decisions together as a collective. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why it's weird that in o Hi they would there
Speaker 1: was an outcry in the eighties. I guess they were
Speaker 1: just so new that they didn't get it. I think
Speaker 1: that's and I think that's ultimately why people don't like
Speaker 1: roundabouts there. It's a new thing, and everybody was raised
Speaker 1: with their traffic lights, and they know what they're doing
Speaker 1: with traffic lights, and this is a big, new, scary thing,
Speaker 1: and we're not in the mood to learn a new thing.
Speaker 1: So get that plan out of here and give us
Speaker 1: a stupid, dumb traffic light that we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: sit at at one in the morning, even though there's
Speaker 1: no one in sight, and lose our minds and then
Speaker 1: you finally get sick of it inside to run the
Speaker 1: light and out of nowhere there's a cop behind you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break, okay, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about roundabouts right after this. Okay, So we should
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about how to design a round about.
Speaker 1: If you have a neighborhood that you have under your control, Um,
Speaker 1: maybe you're gonna want to put a roundabout in after
Speaker 1: you listen to this episod. So so if so, there's
Speaker 1: some some things, some design principles that you want to
Speaker 1: fall off if you're the king of your neighborhood or
Speaker 1: the dictator. Sure, why not? Apparently, according to our article,
Speaker 1: there are five characteristics, one of which I wouldn't even
Speaker 1: count as something you would need to. Uh, well, I'll
Speaker 1: just say that the big dumb, dumb one that should
Speaker 1: be assumed. I'm gonna see if I can pick it out. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, I bet you well. First you enter, the
Speaker 1: entry is controlled by a yield sign. Okay, that's that's smart.
Speaker 1: But there are no signs or anything else you have
Speaker 1: to do while inside the circle. The circle use your
Speaker 1: turn signal. Yeah, that's the one thing you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: But everything else is like thunder dome like no rules.
Speaker 1: Actually that's not true. There's plenty of rules, plenty of rules.
Speaker 1: The second one is vehicles inside the roadway always have
Speaker 1: the right of way. That's a big one. Again, that's
Speaker 1: gap theory. You get in where you fit in if
Speaker 1: you're coming into the circle, because everybody else in the
Speaker 1: circle already has the right of way. Did you make
Speaker 1: up get in where you fit in? I mean, I've
Speaker 1: heard it before. But as far as traffic circles go, yes,
Speaker 1: because that's a that's a heck of a slogan. I
Speaker 1: think it's I think that is probably what's going to
Speaker 1: lead America to a deep and abiding love of roundabout
Speaker 1: think so we love things that rhyme. Yeah, we're dumb culture. Third,
Speaker 1: pedestrians can only cross the legs of the intersection. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you can only do it behind the yield sign.
Speaker 1: So does that make sense to people? Yeah? Like you,
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to cross to the center island. I
Speaker 1: have a little story about that. Actually, the very famous
Speaker 1: Arc a Triumph in Paris, France, that's the one I
Speaker 1: was talking about, the plus ta ta Okay, is that
Speaker 1: what it's called. Yeah, that's the name of the traffic circle. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When I've the very first time I went to a
Speaker 1: pair of us when I was, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: twenty two years old, my friend, uh Brett and I
Speaker 1: were standing on the outside looking at the Arc de
Speaker 1: Triomph and all of that traffic and how many lanes
Speaker 1: is that? Did you say? Twelve? Okay, twelve? But there
Speaker 1: are no lines, right, It's just twelve space for twelve cars.
Speaker 1: Think about that, like we don't even have twelve lane
Speaker 1: highways in the United States as big as our highways are. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we're standing there and we're looking across and we're
Speaker 1: looking at the traffic. We're like, man, I don't know
Speaker 1: about this. Uh. And then we see an elderly woman
Speaker 1: standing under the arch and I was like, dude, if
Speaker 1: she can get over there, we can get over there.
Speaker 1: And we did the frogger dash across the street, made
Speaker 1: it in one piece, and then realized that there's an
Speaker 1: underground walkway. I have the exact same story. Really, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: When I was there with my family, my sister and
Speaker 1: I tried to we we've made it across, but then
Speaker 1: we're like, how is this legal? Why, Like, couldn't Paris
Speaker 1: have come up with a better way? Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: answer is yes, and they did. That's pretty funny. I
Speaker 1: bet we're not alone as Americans. I'm thinking that happens
Speaker 1: multiple times a day. All right. So the fourth one
Speaker 1: is that parking is not allowed within the circular roadway.
Speaker 1: I think this is I'm gonna go ahead and say
Speaker 1: that I think this is the dumb one. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that's the one. Anyone ever just stopped and then like
Speaker 1: and like, all right, I'm going to the store. Maybe
Speaker 1: there's that There's one they put a round about in
Speaker 1: Atlantox mall, you know that. I don't think I've seen
Speaker 1: that one. Um it has backed up traffic four miles
Speaker 1: like somehow, like the traffic backs up the Tennessee now
Speaker 1: because no one knows what to do there. They do
Speaker 1: stop in the middle. I don't think anybody's parked in
Speaker 1: it to go into the mall, but if they had,
Speaker 1: I would be all that surprised. Is it in the
Speaker 1: parking lot? It's um, it's part of the road. It's
Speaker 1: in the parking lot, but it's part of like the
Speaker 1: you know the road. You know what I'm saying. It's
Speaker 1: not like in there's not like a parking space on
Speaker 1: it or any Yeah, to get to and from the mall.
Speaker 1: On the mall property, there's a roundabout, natcha gotcha? Uh?
Speaker 1: And people do stop though, like just as the guy
Speaker 1: barreled in without yielding. I was also in a round
Speaker 1: about the other day where a lady like jammed on
Speaker 1: the brakes when she saw a car approaching to get
Speaker 1: into the roundabout. And that MUCKs everything up to right,
Speaker 1: that's the we've theory that screwed things up with rotaries.
Speaker 1: You just you do not stop when you're in the roundabout.
Speaker 1: And I think this is what really freaks people out
Speaker 1: as you realize that once you pull into that circle,
Speaker 1: you're expected to keep going like that's just the way
Speaker 1: it is. You're not supposed to stop. Technically, you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to change lanes, and you're just you're supposed to go, go, go.
Speaker 1: And think that's probably what unsettles a lot of people
Speaker 1: about the roundabout. That and the fact that it's unfamiliar
Speaker 1: and new and it's not what they learned to drive
Speaker 1: on starting at age sixteen, you know. Yeah, and if
Speaker 1: you get freaked out, like if you're I mean, the
Speaker 1: ones in Atlanta are all pretty small, neighborhood ones, just
Speaker 1: single lanes and you're going super slow. But if you
Speaker 1: get in a large one and you get freaked out
Speaker 1: and you don't get how to get over or to
Speaker 1: get in the off the exit, just keep circling. Calm down,
Speaker 1: because you can keep driving in a circle, just like
Speaker 1: European vacation, Big Bend Parliament. Just keep hugging the circle
Speaker 1: until everybody leaves and then you can do what you
Speaker 1: want until two in the morning and everyone's gone. And
Speaker 1: then finally, the fifth characteristic is all traffic must pass
Speaker 1: to the right of the central island in a counterclockwise direction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a big one, and and it's it depends on
Speaker 1: where you are and what traffic circle it is. But
Speaker 1: in the United States, traffic circles and roundabouts typically go
Speaker 1: counter clockwise. Like you said, right, there are some out
Speaker 1: there that that go clockwise. Depends on again, on where
Speaker 1: you are. The point is is all traffic is going
Speaker 1: in the same direction around the circle. I think there's
Speaker 1: a couple out there that, of course are going to
Speaker 1: um undermine what I said. It's always somebody who's going
Speaker 1: to but um, traffic circles typically all flow in the
Speaker 1: same direction. Yes, So what we're talking about is sort
Speaker 1: of the standard. There are many different kinds will go
Speaker 1: over here in a sec but the standard one is
Speaker 1: just a circle around the central island. Most of the times,
Speaker 1: there's something lovely in that island, right, a planting or
Speaker 1: a statue or something, which is another reason why people
Speaker 1: like roundabouts more. Yep, stop signs never planted or in
Speaker 1: the middle of a fountain. There's just some person wandering
Speaker 1: there in the middle of the intersection, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and someone has put a sticker over the stop sign
Speaker 1: that says Trump or law ugging or animal abuse or whatever. Oh,
Speaker 1: I get the I get it now stop whatever I
Speaker 1: got you have you never understood that, now, I'm kidding. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think I do remember it taking me longer than
Speaker 1: it should have, though, And this is the first time
Speaker 1: I've ever really admitted it. Yeah, And yield signs, don't
Speaker 1: You wouldn't be prone to yield to logging. Everyone yield
Speaker 1: to logging. Um, well, the logging industry, they might put
Speaker 1: those up that would never take off though, because it
Speaker 1: doesn't rhyme. Oh, you're right. Um. So they have many
Speaker 1: roundabouts that are uh, you know, in diameter, and then
Speaker 1: what they call rural roundabouts, uh, which are very large,
Speaker 1: and the only the reason they're large is because it's
Speaker 1: rural and you can go a little faster. M That's
Speaker 1: the thing. Like, the smaller the radius of the round about,
Speaker 1: the slower you have to go around it, which is
Speaker 1: one reason why in Atlanta there's so many of those
Speaker 1: ones just in the middle of the neighborhood rather than
Speaker 1: a speed bump. There's a nice little lovely fountain just
Speaker 1: smack dab in the middle of the road, or maybe
Speaker 1: it's a tree or something like that, and it's a
Speaker 1: barrier an impediment that you're being forced to go around,
Speaker 1: so you can't go very fast right with with a
Speaker 1: traffic circle, um, that is one of the main goals
Speaker 1: of any traffic circles to slow you down and to
Speaker 1: direct you safely to where you're going at a slightly
Speaker 1: slower rate of speed. Um. But depending on the radius
Speaker 1: of the circle, you can go a lot faster on
Speaker 1: on the bigger ones. And there's some I saw that
Speaker 1: are up to like a hundred meters across or three feet,
Speaker 1: which is basically like a football field. That's an enormous
Speaker 1: traffic circle. On something like that, you can just haul all.
Speaker 1: But I guess I live near a Memorial Drive at
Speaker 1: a very dangerous inner section where Memorial Drive kind of
Speaker 1: in the neighborhoods where I live is dangerous anyway, because
Speaker 1: it is a thirty five street supposedly that's three lanes
Speaker 1: that people go about sixty on. Yeah, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of hills and like blind a lot of blind hills,
Speaker 1: blind streets, side streets or whatever. Yeah, and it's one
Speaker 1: of those that has the reversible like it has a
Speaker 1: has a sign above that either hasn't a green arrow
Speaker 1: or red X for that center lane. So depending on
Speaker 1: the time of day or the lanes mood, yeah, or
Speaker 1: the lanes mood, it will switch. And we have we
Speaker 1: probably have eight to ten serious serious accidents at the
Speaker 1: intersection near my house a year, really scary ones in
Speaker 1: So they are they're not doing roundabout so wish they would,
Speaker 1: but they are doing a what's called a road diet.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of that. That's when you actually
Speaker 1: lessen the uh, you shrink, not in size, but you
Speaker 1: what's the word I'm looking for. I don't know that.
Speaker 1: They're basically shrinking the travel lanes to make it safer.
Speaker 1: So they're that middle lane is going to be a
Speaker 1: turn lane now and not a reversible traffic lane, so
Speaker 1: there will only be one lane of traffic going each
Speaker 1: way with the turn lane, with the idea that that
Speaker 1: is less confusing, it slows things down supposedly and gets
Speaker 1: people that are turning out of the way. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: reversible lane is just a bad idea, especially on Memorial.
Speaker 1: It's not a thirty five mile our road. Now, Atlanta
Speaker 1: has two very notable in that area, Memorial Drive in
Speaker 1: and de Cab Avenue. That are both people drive way
Speaker 1: too fast on these roads, and they're both have these
Speaker 1: reversible lanes. So I wish they would do a big
Speaker 1: roundabout right near my house, but they'll they'd never go
Speaker 1: for that. Yeah. I actually um just barely escaped death
Speaker 1: once on De Cab Avenue because I hadn't noticed that
Speaker 1: the lane was reversible, and I took a left in
Speaker 1: front of a guy in the reversible lane next to me,
Speaker 1: and just he just stopped just in time. I had
Speaker 1: no idea that he was there because I didn't realize
Speaker 1: the lane was reversible. Yeah, it was. Man. Even just
Speaker 1: thinking about it now, I get the shivers. You see
Speaker 1: the chicken skin. They're like quills, all right. So there
Speaker 1: are more types of than the just the regular roundabout,
Speaker 1: and they are as follows. To me, I couldn't tell
Speaker 1: the difference in the dog bone and the dumbbell. I
Speaker 1: got this really because they looked just the same to me,
Speaker 1: did they? You looked him up and they looked the same, Huh,
Speaker 1: I thought, so, Okay, but that just maybe the Internet
Speaker 1: messing with me could be. So, like a dog bone
Speaker 1: one is two traffic circles, and but it's one contiguous
Speaker 1: road going around both of them and connecting the two. Okay,
Speaker 1: So it's like you go around one circle and then
Speaker 1: you go on a little bit of a straight away,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly you're in the next circle, and you
Speaker 1: go around that circle and you're back onto the other
Speaker 1: side of the straight away, and then you're back onto
Speaker 1: the other circle. Right, that's a dog bone one. Just
Speaker 1: imagine what a dog bone looks like from the sky.
Speaker 1: A dumbbell. Sure, a dumbbell. Uh. Traffic circle is a
Speaker 1: traffic circle and another traffic circle, and there are two
Speaker 1: distinct ones, and they're connected in the middle by a
Speaker 1: roadway like a dumbbell. So it's not one contiguous road,
Speaker 1: even though it kind of is. It's it's much more
Speaker 1: of like a right turn when you get into one
Speaker 1: circle or out of one circle to get to that
Speaker 1: main road. How about this, Everybody go look up a
Speaker 1: dog bone traffic circle and a dumbbell traffic circle, and
Speaker 1: you'll say, Okay, the way that this article put it
Speaker 1: is the dog bone traffic circle. It looks like you
Speaker 1: took a big traffic circle and pinched it in the middle,
Speaker 1: and then the the like two circles form on the
Speaker 1: outer edge, and it's kind of flattened in the middle
Speaker 1: of the two. I think that's a pretty good description. Again,
Speaker 1: just go look up pictures of them. Yeah, if you're
Speaker 1: listening to I'll pull your car over though, Oh good point,
Speaker 1: put your phone down. Yeah. Uh. The Hamburger roundabout is
Speaker 1: just like a regular roundabout, but the main road there
Speaker 1: crosses the center island. So if you want to go straight,
Speaker 1: you can just go straight. If you accidentally, let's say,
Speaker 1: get in the roundabout, you can still exit in and
Speaker 1: go like you were going straight on that main road. Though,
Speaker 1: you have two options basically, yeah, if you want to
Speaker 1: go straight, and then from what I saw, if you're
Speaker 1: that that road, the Hamburger line road that goes straight
Speaker 1: through the circle is the one with the right of
Speaker 1: way and everything. Everybody else getting into the circle and
Speaker 1: um going around the circle has to yield to that
Speaker 1: that road going right through. It seems okay, It seems
Speaker 1: a little much like you've you've taken roundabout design too far.
Speaker 1: If you've made a Hamburger this is my opinion. Uh yeah, agreed.
Speaker 1: So there's a flower one to chuck, which is pretty Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean the flowers in the in the center circle,
Speaker 1: although they are often there. But this is where you
Speaker 1: have a regular traditional roundabout, but the right hand turns
Speaker 1: are there's another little little slip road outside the roundabout.
Speaker 1: It's called a slip lane, and I think that just
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe that makes a little easier. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if you're actually entering the traffic circle, that means
Speaker 1: you're either going straight, turning left, or making a U turn.
Speaker 1: If you're doing right turns, you're just directed right. You
Speaker 1: don't ever make it quite to the traffic circle. It's
Speaker 1: just like your take your right go over there. And
Speaker 1: I mean, at the very least it would cut down
Speaker 1: on congestion um and probably it would because there's fewer
Speaker 1: people entering the traffic circle. Would just cut down on
Speaker 1: accidents altogether. Um. And then another one's turbo a turbo roundabout,
Speaker 1: which is basically like a flower roundabout. But the thing
Speaker 1: is it's um it's multiple lanes, but you have to
Speaker 1: choose what lane you want to be in depending on
Speaker 1: what you want to do. If you want to take
Speaker 1: a right turn, you get in the far right lane.
Speaker 1: If you want to go straight, you have to get
Speaker 1: in the um the middle lane. If you want to
Speaker 1: turn left, you get in the left lane, and depending
Speaker 1: on what you're doing, it will direct you around the
Speaker 1: traffic circle to where you want to go. But the
Speaker 1: reason you have to choose a lane is because once
Speaker 1: you're in it, you can't move like there may be
Speaker 1: a curb or there's some flowers or something like that.
Speaker 1: And these are supposedly way safer. I saw something like
Speaker 1: fewer accidents. Yeah, they allow for more UM cars. They
Speaker 1: make you um think about what you're doing a lot more,
Speaker 1: so you tend to go into them a little slower,
Speaker 1: even though it's called the turbo roundabout UM. And the
Speaker 1: reason why there's fewer accidents is there are fewer conflict points,
Speaker 1: right DoD we talk about conflict points yet, so if
Speaker 1: you enter an intersection, a four or four way intersection
Speaker 1: with a traffic light, there's actually thirty two of what
Speaker 1: are called conflict points, and they're basically thirty two places
Speaker 1: that you could possibly get into an accident, and some
Speaker 1: of them can be really bad, like a t bone
Speaker 1: right where you turn left in front of an oncoming
Speaker 1: car and it hits you right in the middle. They
Speaker 1: are bad. I got turned over once, hanging upside down
Speaker 1: in my car for getting t bone. Yeah, seat belts
Speaker 1: man um. And then there you could also get a
Speaker 1: head on collision. Those are particularly bad too. Those don't
Speaker 1: exist in traffic circles. It's not possible for you to
Speaker 1: get t boned or to get into a head on
Speaker 1: collision in a traffic circle. Right. There's actually only eight
Speaker 1: conflict points in a traffic circle rather than thirty two,
Speaker 1: so that automatically means there's gonna be fewer accidents. And
Speaker 1: then with a turbo um traffic circle, they have fewer
Speaker 1: conflict points. I didn't see where, um, but I think
Speaker 1: because of them in the flower ones that they direct
Speaker 1: right hand turns outside of the circle. Um, it probably
Speaker 1: cuts it by half, maybe even the number of conflict points. Right.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about cars here. Pedestrians and cyclists also
Speaker 1: figure in UH. And like we said before, pedestrians they
Speaker 1: usually have a crosswalk on the legs behind those yield
Speaker 1: signs and some kind of UH they call it landscaping
Speaker 1: buff or something sort of there to intuitively keep you
Speaker 1: out of that intersection and directed toward where you should cross.
Speaker 1: If you're a cyclist, Uh, you have a choice. You
Speaker 1: can either get off your bike and then act like
Speaker 1: you're just a walking pedestrian and go that way, or
Speaker 1: you can get in that traffic circle and they should
Speaker 1: treat you like a car and they suggest that you
Speaker 1: ride kind of in the middle of it, so cars
Speaker 1: aren't um incentivized to try and go around you right
Speaker 1: in the middle of the lane. Yeah. Yeah, because a
Speaker 1: car going around a cyclist in a traffic circle, that's
Speaker 1: that's probably your recipe for accident for sure, dude. And then, um,
Speaker 1: did you say that pedestrians are the actually the ones
Speaker 1: in a traffic circle who have the right of way
Speaker 1: above everybody else. No, I didn't. I didn't say the
Speaker 1: right of way. But pedestrians always have the right of
Speaker 1: way on or should have the right of way on
Speaker 1: roads in America. But I mean not like expressways obviously.
Speaker 1: But you you know, be smart. You still just don't
Speaker 1: go like a running through there saying I've got the
Speaker 1: right of way right. If you hit me, you're in trouble,
Speaker 1: it's your fault. You want to take another break, Let's
Speaker 1: do alright, dude, So there are some real benefits to roundabout.
Speaker 1: One of the things we already talked about is that
Speaker 1: safer just by by definition, they have fewer content conflict points.
Speaker 1: So with fewer places that you possibly can get into
Speaker 1: an accident, there's going to be fewer accidents, um. And
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of different statistics. There's some old statistics.
Speaker 1: There's one there was a study from two thousand that
Speaker 1: looked at twenty four new roundabouts in the US and
Speaker 1: found that there was a seventy six percent decrease in
Speaker 1: crashes that resulted in injuries, and decrease in crashes that
Speaker 1: were fatal or incapacitating, And then there was about at
Speaker 1: reduction and crashes overall. Those are numbers that's enormous, um
Speaker 1: and they they seem to be held up like I've
Speaker 1: seen different studies that have slightly different numbers, but they're
Speaker 1: all definitely in that same ballpark, and they all amount
Speaker 1: to the fact that traffic circles are just way way
Speaker 1: safer than intersections with lights, just ridiculously safer. Again, it's
Speaker 1: impossible to get into a head on collision, and it's
Speaker 1: impossible to get t bone and those are the two
Speaker 1: most dangerous kind of accidents you can get into. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're also cheaper um over time. It's to build a
Speaker 1: round about, it cost about the same roughly depending on
Speaker 1: you know, the size obviously as a regular like traffic
Speaker 1: lighted intersection or traffic light. But these traffic lights over
Speaker 1: time cost a lot more to maintain um about five
Speaker 1: to ten tho dollars a year and maintenance over their
Speaker 1: life of fifteen to twenty years. I would think that's
Speaker 1: how much like a traffic light cost and then that
Speaker 1: was it. That's an enormous amount of money. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: these are this government money, though, I guess that's I
Speaker 1: wonder if that's for all all the lights in an intersection.
Speaker 1: They can't be per light, right, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: Yeah probably, I don't know who knows, but yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a lot. And that's the thing with traffic circles. You
Speaker 1: don't have lights. You got four yield signs on the
Speaker 1: outside legs, and everything else is basically just paying somebody
Speaker 1: to keep the grass cut and the flowers watered in
Speaker 1: the center island, maybe some paint on the road yea,
Speaker 1: And eventually, you know, they said about twenty five years,
Speaker 1: you might need to do some reconstruction on the roundabout
Speaker 1: from uh, from dummies hopping the curb and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's the time. I couldn't think of why.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you're really wearing your your roundabout out if
Speaker 1: only last twenty five years. But yes, of course people
Speaker 1: do hit the curb, especially apparently. Um, eighteen wheeler drivers
Speaker 1: are not particularly big fans of roundabouts because if the
Speaker 1: radius is really tight there, they just can't navigate it.
Speaker 1: So some roundabout designs have included an apron, which is
Speaker 1: basically like a curved curb that you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: drive on. But if you're an eighteen wheeler, it's just
Speaker 1: a little extra bit of room that you can get
Speaker 1: through the traffic circle with. Yeah, um, what else is there? Oh?
Speaker 1: I know, I know their benefit this one. They are
Speaker 1: green man, and I hadn't thought about it. But when
Speaker 1: you stop at an intersection, come to a complete stop,
Speaker 1: especially if you're sitting there idling at a stupid red light,
Speaker 1: you're just sitting there burning gas, and then you burn
Speaker 1: a lot of gas to go from a complete stand
Speaker 1: still up to accelerate to the normal speed again too,
Speaker 1: you don't have that in a traffic circle, or you
Speaker 1: have a lot less of it because people can just
Speaker 1: go right into the circle if they're getting in where
Speaker 1: they're fitting in America, Yeah, yeah, there are some numbers
Speaker 1: around that. It uh, it reduces delays depending on the
Speaker 1: roundabout anywhere from and this improved flow reduces fuel consumption
Speaker 1: and emissions by about or more. Yeah. I saw less
Speaker 1: gas used from a study back in two dozen two,
Speaker 1: again an old study, but I didn't see anything newer
Speaker 1: than that. Should we talk about some tips? Yes, this
Speaker 1: is this is the public service segment of this this episode, Chuck,
Speaker 1: and I really feel like we can do some real
Speaker 1: good here. Yeah. I mean we've kind of covered some
Speaker 1: of these. But if you don't know about how to
Speaker 1: navigate a round about, you approach it. As you approach it,
Speaker 1: take a deep breath, relax. You can do this, no
Speaker 1: big deal. And you're gonna see that diamond shaped or
Speaker 1: it's actually not diamond shaped. It's it's upside down triangle. Right,
Speaker 1: it's two triangles put bottom to bottom, but to butt
Speaker 1: backside to backside. Are they they're not diamond shaped, are they? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a triangle triangles No, these aren't yield signs.
Speaker 1: This is a this is a roundabout sign. Beware of
Speaker 1: approaching a round about. Yeah, it's it's basically like a
Speaker 1: quick graphic that's like basically a rough map of the
Speaker 1: round about your dealing with it. Show the number of
Speaker 1: suggested speed. All that gotcha? Gotcha? So take a look
Speaker 1: at that. So you know what you're about to go into.
Speaker 1: Our article is so dumb. It says it has a
Speaker 1: suggested speed, usually around twenty or thirty miles per hour.
Speaker 1: Don't just default to that, you know, look at the
Speaker 1: suggested speed if there is one, or just slow down.
Speaker 1: It's pretty intuitive of how fast people are going. I
Speaker 1: feel so bad for pumps right now. For what pumps
Speaker 1: climp pump free. Oh yeah he wrote this one. I
Speaker 1: thought it was pretty good. No, it is good, but
Speaker 1: there's a couple of things you should clean up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the counterintuitive thing. We definitely disagreed with that. All right,
Speaker 1: so slow down to that speed, look for people, look
Speaker 1: for bikes in the crosswalks. And again, if there's somebody
Speaker 1: in that crosswalk, you stopped because they got the right away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but so you yield to them. But if it's clear,
Speaker 1: you go to that yield sign. You look left to
Speaker 1: see if anyone's coming, and if no one's coming, you
Speaker 1: ease into that traffic circle. Ideally you don't have to
Speaker 1: stop at all, but if there's cars there, of course
Speaker 1: you do. But if not, you just keep that flow
Speaker 1: going and go around that circle as many times as
Speaker 1: you need to feel comfortable exiting the circle right, and
Speaker 1: when you're in there, don't stop. No, not stop while
Speaker 1: you're in the traffic circle. Again, if you're freaked out,
Speaker 1: just drive around in the circle and hum to yourself,
Speaker 1: give yourself a little like many lobotomy right, and then
Speaker 1: when you're comfortable, do your thing. But remember you still
Speaker 1: need to use your your signals right, So if you're
Speaker 1: taking a right at that first leg, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: pretty quick and painless. You just stay in the right
Speaker 1: lane and you go around, and you turn right. You
Speaker 1: turn your right right signal on and make a right
Speaker 1: hand turn. Yes, it gets a little more complicated if
Speaker 1: you're going straight, but really it's not, because if you
Speaker 1: stop and think about it, all you're doing is swerving
Speaker 1: around an island and going back into the path that
Speaker 1: you were on before. Yeah, then there are multiple lane
Speaker 1: roundabouts I have. I don't think I've ever been in
Speaker 1: one of those. Oh yeah, I do. There's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a little more complex, but it's it's
Speaker 1: really not in the key to those or you just
Speaker 1: don't change lanes. You pick the lane you need to
Speaker 1: be in, and once you're in it, you don't change lanes,
Speaker 1: right and and it's just it's just two lanes going
Speaker 1: in the same direction together. So if you're gonna go,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna turn left, you already want to be
Speaker 1: in the left lane of the two lanes, and you're
Speaker 1: going to go into the inner lane of the traffic
Speaker 1: circle right. And then when you take that left turn,
Speaker 1: what you're really doing for as far as the circle
Speaker 1: is concerned, just taking a right. But let's not confuse
Speaker 1: things further. When you take that left turn or make
Speaker 1: that left under that left leg, you're staying in that
Speaker 1: that lane. There's gonna be a lane for you to
Speaker 1: go into that whole time. So you just stay in
Speaker 1: your lane and go to where you want to go,
Speaker 1: and everything is totally fine. It's not that much more
Speaker 1: complicated for a two lane one. Yeah, not really, just uh,
Speaker 1: you know, be careful with all this stuff. Don't get
Speaker 1: barreling in there if you're not. You know, even if
Speaker 1: you do feel comfortable with your own self, not everyone
Speaker 1: else is. Yeah, that's a big one to remember. So
Speaker 1: just remember even though you've slowing down, maybe more than
Speaker 1: you want to, it's still better than stopping in a stoplight. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I have to say also, like it would not
Speaker 1: hurt to go watch like a two minute video on
Speaker 1: how to navigate around about Like there's it's not hard,
Speaker 1: but it's a lot easier to see it with like
Speaker 1: some video than it is to hear somebody describing it,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, for sure. So I we got to
Speaker 1: talk about a couple of like roundabout things in pop culture. Okay,
Speaker 1: it was actually let's do it. We already talked about
Speaker 1: European vacation, right, but there's actually a dude who holds
Speaker 1: a record for the UM I guess, the longest time
Speaker 1: driven on a single roundabout? Oh really? Yeah, a guy
Speaker 1: named or In Sands from Carmel, Indiana, which, as far
Speaker 1: as I can tell, Carmel, Indiana, uh has sixty roundabouts,
Speaker 1: which is more than any other city in the United States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how many did you say? Sixty Carmel. Dude now has
Speaker 1: a hundred and five. Wow. Man, they've gone bonkers with
Speaker 1: a hundred. That was July of last year, and they
Speaker 1: have a hundred and forty proposed. Wow. It's the roundabout
Speaker 1: capital of the United States. Well, they also have and
Speaker 1: that's appropriate because they have the roundabout king Or in
Speaker 1: Saints who on October drove his Volkswagen Cabriole around a
Speaker 1: dog Bone roundabout in Carmel for three hours, thirty four
Speaker 1: minutes and thirty three point to four seconds, which set
Speaker 1: a record only because it must have been the first
Speaker 1: time anybody's ever done that. Was He just one of
Speaker 1: those guys. It's not comfortable, so he just kept going
Speaker 1: out to set a record. He he was out to
Speaker 1: set a record, but it all start because he was um.
Speaker 1: He got distracted once and ended up having to go
Speaker 1: around the dog Bone Um roundabout and decided, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just set a record here, so we did.
Speaker 1: He's that kind of guy in that kind of town.
Speaker 1: I got some stats for you as far as the
Speaker 1: United States go, American drivers, on average passed through one thousand,
Speaker 1: one eighteen intersections before you encounter a roundabout uh. And
Speaker 1: in France, you were more than twenty five times more
Speaker 1: likely to go through a roundabout than the States. Also
Speaker 1: very big in Germany obviously, Great Britain, Spain, Australia. Uh
Speaker 1: And in fact, Australia, I think his second to France.
Speaker 1: You got through one round about every sixty five intersections. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw that. Australia's roundabout crazy too. Uh. And as
Speaker 1: far as the US goes, the state of Florida has
Speaker 1: the most, although the state of Maryland has the highest
Speaker 1: concentration of roundabout. So and Maryland, I believe it's uh,
Speaker 1: you're likely to pass through one once every three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty three and South Dakota is the least likely
Speaker 1: state number fifty um. And I guess I mean there's
Speaker 1: no one in South Dakota. You don't need roundabouts, It
Speaker 1: makes sense. But it's uh, on average once every hundred
Speaker 1: and six intersections, which I think means there's only one roundabout.
Speaker 1: I think. So it's right in the middle of a
Speaker 1: wagon trail. Yeah. And we you know, we got to
Speaker 1: talk about Swindon, Yes, we do. So. Swindon has something
Speaker 1: that's actually the actual name of it is the Magic roundabout.
Speaker 1: It was originally called County Islands Ring Junction, but it's
Speaker 1: so nuts that they renamed it Magic Roundabout and that
Speaker 1: was a nod to a kids show and that was
Speaker 1: very popular in Europe in the sixties and seventies. Yes,
Speaker 1: Swindon obviously in England. If you're a fan of the
Speaker 1: Ginnel BBC Office then you know about Swindon. It takes
Speaker 1: a lot of guff on that show. It's sort of
Speaker 1: a running joke. Okay, so just setting the stage, is that?
Speaker 1: Where is that where the the British office was set? No,
Speaker 1: but they take on very early in the in the
Speaker 1: in the show, they take on workers from the Swindon
Speaker 1: branch that had closed and there I don't know what
Speaker 1: the inside joke is, but they're just a lot of
Speaker 1: little barbs kind of thrown at Swindon throughout the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could see that, who knows. I've never really watched
Speaker 1: the British version, man, it's so good. The American version
Speaker 1: is pretty great too, is there both great? It's one
Speaker 1: of those rare cases where they just nailed it in
Speaker 1: both both countries. Nice. So in Swindon. Swindon's big claim
Speaker 1: to fame is that they have that that magic roundabout.
Speaker 1: So get this. The magic roundabout is five clockwise roundabouts,
Speaker 1: many roundabouts that form a circle outside a an internal
Speaker 1: big roundabout that goes counterclockwise. Well know, inside an external
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be they're contained within the outer one? Oh okay,
Speaker 1: I thought it was that they were. They were around
Speaker 1: the outside of an inner one. So there's an outer
Speaker 1: one that goes that that the the five are inside.
Speaker 1: That makes way more sense. Yeah, Like, just go to
Speaker 1: wired dot com and there's an article called the Brilliant
Speaker 1: Sorcery of England's seven Circle Magic and they have a
Speaker 1: a little moving graphic of how this thing works. And
Speaker 1: it will as an American and maybe even as a European,
Speaker 1: it will break your brain as a human being. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you look at this thing, when it shows how
Speaker 1: everything works in motion with different color arrows going around
Speaker 1: like it looks like chaos, but apparently it works. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to make you gotta really know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: But if you do know what you're doing, it works.
Speaker 1: I saw over twenty five year period again, and so
Speaker 1: so what I'm seeing here is that there are five
Speaker 1: five of these roundabouts all connected. There's an inner closs
Speaker 1: anti clockwise roundabout, and an outer clockwise roundabout, so it's
Speaker 1: technically seven roundabouts all forming one giant circle. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I'm seeing. Um But despite all this, in twenty
Speaker 1: five years, they've only had fourteen serious accidents and about
Speaker 1: a hundred lesser accidents in twenty five years. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of those involved, uh bicyclists, And
Speaker 1: now they have solved that, they think because there is
Speaker 1: now a cycle lane on the outside of the whole
Speaker 1: thing with something called the pelican crossing. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is to you, Yes, I looked it up.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. It's called a
Speaker 1: UM pedestrian light controlled crossing. It's kind of like a
Speaker 1: terrible acronym. But if you know, when like you're you
Speaker 1: want to cross, rather than wait for like the light
Speaker 1: to change, you can press the button and the light
Speaker 1: comes on. Everybody has to stop. That's a pelican crossing. Okay,
Speaker 1: So they think that's solved what little, you know problem
Speaker 1: they had with accidents. Yeah, it's pretty impressive, man. I
Speaker 1: think one of the other reasons is there's not more accidents.
Speaker 1: People who don't know what they're doing. Just stay out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, rent a helicopter? Why not you got anything else?
Speaker 1: I got nothing else? I like this one. This is
Speaker 1: to me is one of my favorite kind of stuff
Speaker 1: you should know episodes, civil engineering ones, traffic ones. What
Speaker 1: just sort of like ballpoint pins, like a very rudimentary
Speaker 1: thing that's actually brilliant in its simplicity and has in
Speaker 1: unique history. I love this stuff. Yep. Well, if you
Speaker 1: want to know more about traffic, circles and roundabouts, go watch.
Speaker 1: Some videos are actually kind of mesmerizing. Uh. And you
Speaker 1: will learn to be a better driver as a result,
Speaker 1: and maybe none of us will ever have to wait
Speaker 1: at a red light again. Ever. Uh. And since I
Speaker 1: said that it's time for listener mail, oh no it's not.
Speaker 1: Oh what is the time before? And then well I
Speaker 1: didn't get one. So when occasionally that happens, okay, not
Speaker 1: to say it in get an email. I just did
Speaker 1: not prepare one. I see, I see. But sometimes when
Speaker 1: that happens, we will do this. We will encourage the
Speaker 1: sharing of stuff you should know. Oh yeah, tell some friends,
Speaker 1: tell one person you know, tell tell to tell two
Speaker 1: people that you know how much you love the show.
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