GF grew up in the sticks. Literally, in the sticks. She's a city girl but ain't spend much time in the "city"
local city here has tons of them, I think about 60 roundabouts. They serve a purpose. That purpose depends on the person who's attempting to navigate it.
Me? If I'm in the truck, several different color body panels, dings dents, parts missing...if you don't yield, you're not gonna get much a brake, and 8,000 lbs of Phord won't feel too good. But I may not feel much. If I'm in the car, check for traffic, cops, hammer down drift! If the GF is navigating the roundabout? Drive around in circles a few times until figure out which way I want to go. Or, get dizzy...whichever happens first. most of them have cameras on them now so if there's a wreck, which there is (often!), just get a court order for the "tape" and use it for evidence. I ain't had to do it, others have, and supposedly that's how it works. I personally don't know.
Stupid idiots leading the town here have no clue about roads. I moved here when it was a population of about 18,000. It's over 100,000 now and the same exact roads are still in place. One artery road was improved about 20 years ago, it "was" better and it could have been a LOT better but the dang mayor spent a few hundred grand in studying "access management" and nothing was done to alleviate it's many problems--they just keep putting up more and more signals, which slows the traffic. That's not how it's supposed to work. BUT what I found out was that some businesses lobbied the highway and/or street dept's to install signals to slow traffic down at that point, which makes drivers more likely to stop at businesses. Really a sorry deal, and the former mayor was in on this-big time. Then all the narrow roads now carrying 50,000-60,000 cars a day, they were designed to carry under 10,000 a day, so they are falling apart completely. I mean totally falling apart from the bottom (base) up. So I approach the council a couple years ago and made it known what I have seen, with photo's of the roads from the 1980's comparing them to the present. Same streets. Photos also of the damages. The council and the current mayor agreed that it is a #1 priority to repair the damage. Great I'm getting somewhere. Well? The main roads that are getting repaired are the ones that the mayor wants repaired...the street he lives on, his family lives on, and his fellow friends/colleagues/former coworkers live on. And when I say 'repaired', those are totally rebuilt as such. But the main ones through town? Cheap, diluted overlays, which last less than a year. I lived off a road in town for a long time. It was gravel for decades and I was fine with that. City came in one day and said we're gonna pave your road. Great, no more dust, right? They got it done. BUT...they didn't use the original base, they dug it all up and laid more of that cheap diluted asphault on it. Within 8 months it was completely fallen apart. I called the city engineer who was in charge of the project and actually met him at the street in question and his response was "what in the world has happened"? Well dumb butt, your cronies made the call to dig up the base-which has stood up to farm equipment, big trucks, cars, everything...for over 50 years, it was a great base for pavement to go right on top, yet you tossed a bunch of cheap shale down on it, run it over with a couple of 555 New Holland tractors which accomplished nothing, and dumped a bunch of junk asphault on it, what'd you expect to happen? His response? "It's better than it was." Boy, I was fuming mad. So they spend $900,000 in that project, and within one year had to re-do the entire thing, which that lasted less than 5 years and they resurfaced it (again) for the 4th time this spring, and it's also beginning to fall in. Where'd our tax money go? You bet! Wasted! Again. And those people wonder why we don't have a lot of trust in them. Take money we worked for and then throw it away.
So with all the narrow roads that can carry the traffic volume of a city of 20,000 folks, now carrying 5x that, they had to figure something out. ROUNDABOUTS. They work, most of the time. There's a couple that are really poorly designed. I can think of one that has 5 entrance/exits rather than 4, quite confusing and none of it marked very well. You just have to know where to be. Another one, 2 lanes on one side 3 on the other, and if you are in the RH lane of the 3 lane side, you are forced onto the freeway with no signage as such. GF hates and avoids that one. One roundabout near that, other side actually, you get off the freeway to a lane that doesn't exist, well it's hash marked off, sorta, but if you end up in that one lane, it takes you the WRONG WAY down a side road. Whoever designed that needs their head examined. Probalbly same people who designed the shopping center near it. Come out of a roundabout to the shopping center access road, which is a turning lane only. So people get confused, they don't wanna turn there so they hurry up and change lanes and whack the car next to them. It happens many times daily.
If you're going to design a roundabout, use thought. Think about the fact that uncommon sense runs rampant, as does ignorance and stupid. You gotta make them elementary in design so that a kindergartner can figure them out. if not, you're fixing to have problems.
Oh BTW seen a big truck run over a car on the one by the freeway last week. I mean the trailer run plum over the little car. Yep, roundabouts can work, but only if the drivers that use them have at least the slightest clue--which most don't seem to posses that gift.
the circle I posted the attorney built his new office on has been here a long time! There are accidents on it daily 
it’s not that complicated
