Hey , we thought that David Beckham was in lieu of the last WW2 loan payment!
In return you get to play a regular NFL game at Wembley. Though we might need a bit of explanation why a lot of men in motorbike helmets are beating seven bells out of each other! 
Nice one! Presumably the thief with a .38 and bad hair can drive around the roundabout waiting for a space in the parking lot!
They changed the one in Portsmouth a few years ago. There are now two lanes entering the traffic circle. If in the right lane youâre just suppose to stay right and exit traffic circle at the next exit. The left lane you enter the traffic circle to exit at one of the other exits. IFâŠfollowed correctly this works decently. Problem isâŠnot everyone follows the rulesâŠand thatâs when problems occur.
The problem with traffic circles in the US is that traffic circles tend to take up quite a bit of valuable real estate when being designed and built. There are very few metropolitan areas that are willing to reduce the amount of zoned real estate that they can charge taxes on just to put in traffic circles.
One town here in Colorado that seems to enjoy installing traffic circles is Loveland.
One road that has more than its fair share is Rocky Mountain Avenue.
Do a quick search on Google Maps to take a look at how many are on this small stretch of road, and also on McKinney, which intersects Rocky Mountain Avenue.
Traffic Circles are useful, but it really depends on if the drivers are intelligent enough to use them properly. Unfortunately, most of the people in the US who operate motor vehicles exhibit signs of low intelligence as they drive around. All it takes is one massively passive/timid person to come to a complete stop at a traffic circle, and that completely ruins the flow of traffic for quite a while.
I like traffic circles, however.
They make it very easy for me to scrub in the left side of my motorcycle tires when I install brand new ones. Just find a traffic circle, and go around about 10 times, slowly increasing the speed, and lean angle, until Iâm happy with how they are scrubbed in.
BC.
I have driven in a few of them and I can safely say that I could live without them. They take up too much real estate and most were a pain to navigate.
On the nearby RT95 with only 10 miles between MA & ME with a toll. It includes two liquor stores North & South like a rest stop. No other entry besides highwayâŠ
They recently installed four circles at exit 102 on interstate 40 here in New Mexico.
They removed a standard ramp-to-stop-signs exit for the p/c cutesey roundabouts.
And they are one massive confusing headache !
Especially for the huge numbers of 18 wheelers needing to negotiate the spinning and turning and lane changing maze. You see so many of them leeeeeaning precariously with all that turning.
All for the sake of the casino at this exit !
As I understand it, the casino footed the bill to MOVE the exit a quarter mile west.
New overpass bridge, new connecting roads and all.
This I could understand as the old one had the ON ramps going UP-hill into 75 mph traffic. Now the new one has down hill on-ramps and up hill off-ramps that greatly aid the semiâs accel/deceleration as well as the rest of us.
---- but those weird confusing circles are just logically beyond me. I hate 'em.
As for âright on redâ I love the way the traffic flow can keep flowing when every one is paying attention.
But remember to STOP FIRST to be lagal.
You cannot be âin the wayâ when you do it.
You canât cause someone to brake or change lanes because of you.
You see many in New England. They are often called ârotariesâ though. Mike, Iâve driven that one in Concord. They work really, really well until they are overloaded, then they fail harder than regular intersections. The one in Concord is running at about twice capacity (or not, as the case may be). It should have been bigger or split up.
Right on red unless there is a sign that says no, and as Tester said, complete stop first
you know Maine used to be part of MA, right? so you are in northern MA, weâre not in southern ME.
Beckham is just on loan. We canât kick (about your Footballers). At least with your football the seating is organized. We have a lot of space in Texas; we just donât know how to get it under control. Weâre not confused and the owner of the Dallas Cowboys knows what we want. Thatâs why he put a huge television screen in the center of the stadium. I will never go there unless Stargate SG-1 is playing. OK Iâm done.
I would have said it that way myself but the locals might not approve.
Trust meâI am well aware of that outrageously-overpriced, very slow-moving 10 mile stretch of NH âexpresswayâ that impedes my progress as I drive to Maine!
Iâve seen roundabouts in Belleville, IL, Wash DC, Newport RI and a couple of cities mostly in the east. The problem is most Americans donât quite know what to do so the traffic reducing benefits of the rotary are lost. I prefer rotaries like in Bermuda and Europe to the dreaded 4-way stop lights or worse yet stop signs that plague the suburban landscape here in the US.
Is that the same place as Boyce City OK?
Zoom to see the traffic circle. http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wl
Now removing tongue from cheek.
Once upon a time I was buying a bus ticket to Boise Idaho. The ticket agent wanted to know why I was going to Boyce City as he had relatives there. Luckily I asked what he meant by Boyce City. About that time it dawned on him that I was going a lot farther that the Oklahoma panhandle.
I have a cousin who works in highway design for my state. He says that traffic circles are âthe wave of the futureâ. I pointed out the the populace HATES them, and that in the east they are a throwback to coaches-and-four. The first time I ever saw one was when travelling in PA as a 19 year old. I wanted to turn left, so I did. Hey, what did I know. Those things werenât covered in driverâs ed. Luckily no one was coming the other way. I know of at least two in my city that are less than five years old. They are just tall enough to almost see over when seated in a car. They have yellow reflectors all around them. Both have been hit HARD by drivers who werenât paying close attention at night.
The one in Concord is running at about twice capacity (or not, as the case may be). It should have been bigger or split up.
And thatâs the MAJOR problem with them. They are fine for a light to moderate traffic. But when traffic gets heavy they are HORRIBLE. And once you HAVE a traffic circleâŠthey are very difficult to get rid of due to traffic flows and patterns.
I thought with the new EZ-pass 65mph lanes there was no more gridlock.
I remember the whole RTOR was because of the OPEC Oil Embargo and the âenergy crisisâ it created. In the summer of 1975, legislation introduced by Sen. Dale Bumpers from Arkansas that would have required all states to allow right turn on red (RTOR), except where prohibited by sign, in order to save gasoline was opposed by various groups and did not go anywhere. However, in December 1975 President Ford signed into law the Energy Policy and Conservation Act which contains a right-turn-on-red provision that requires states to allow RTOR in order to qualify for certain Federal incentive grants. Now every state
allows some form of RTOR, in practice if not by law; only the District of Columbia prohibits it under all circumstances.
So, it is not just some local construct or customâŠrather federal law.
And yes, there are multiple traffic circles being constructed throughout the Natural State.
Everybody seems to agree that âroundaboutsâ are great with light to medium, and a mess with heavy rush hour trffic. The one atribute that I think makes them attractive is that vehicular crashes on them rarely result in serious damage or injury. Most of the incidents are sideswipes and light contacts. There are hardly any t-bones, or headons, and the speeds involved are normally much slower.
There's a few here in Iowa City. People don't have a clue how to handle them. The one at the top of Grand Avenue has yield signs at every entrance (which, to me seems like common sense to yield to cars that are already there rather than ramming into them...). Enough people to make it annoying either barrel in without looking at all, or instead of *yielding* to traffic, come to a dead stop when there's no reason to.
The other really is just a circular island in the middle of a 4-way intersection. I tried to use it as a true roundabout once (going around a full circle) and almost got hit from several sides (well, not a REAL close call..). Since most of the traffic goes either 1/4 or 1/2 way around (right turn or straight through, if the island wasn't there) the other cars didn't even look to see if a car was coming or not, and furthermore instead of pulling in front of me (which would have been fine), waited long enough so they almost hit my passenger door.
There's a third one in north Coralville. It has two lanes going in, but there's a road sign marking the outside lane being dedicated for the first couple streets, and the inside one continues all the way around for the rest. That one actually works well (FAR faster to get through the intersection than the stop light that I'm sure they'd put otherwise), with one exception -- it's just outside the area the city maintains, so last time I used it a few years back, I'm going down a straight, dry road, get to the circle and it's 100% coated in ice. I didn't have any problems but the car did get a bit loose. There were loads of tire tracks off into the ditches, up onto the center island, etc., so obviously others had had more serious problems there.
I also saw one in Liberal, KS. That one was actually a proper full-sized roundabout.
But, in general, there's not a whole lot of them here. I've read theoretical talk about some towns planning to reduce the number of road signs, on the theory that it'll force people to actually pay attention while they drive instead of just following the signs and zoning out the rest of the time (and read that this does in fact reduce accident rates). Roundabouts would go in this direction I think. But in actuality, I've only seen an increase in signage.
Right on red? Generally it's fine unless there's a sign that says "no right turn on red" (as Tester says you must stop first though). I just wikipedia'd it, and they say the one exception is New York City, where right turns are prohibited unless the sign says they are allowed. As others say, you do have to come to a complete stop, and the guys with a green light of course have right of way.Turning right at a red light is governed by local law, and usually there is signage if it is forbidden in a jurisdiction where it is normally allowed. Check your local laws, not the internet.