Circular Reasoning

Scott Hardie | September 20, 2015
A post of mine on Facebook, about Sarasota soon adding 18 more roundabouts (traffic circles) across the city, after it has already added another dozen in the last two years, sparked a heated discussion concerning roundabouts that I did not expect. I had no idea that so many people loved them and hated them.

What is your opinion of traffic circles? Would you want them in your neighborhood? Would you want a series of them along your daily commute? (I'm currently facing both scenarios now that construction is underway.)

Steve West | September 20, 2015
I find them annoying because so many other drivers cannot negotiate them with confidence and with a clear understanding of rights of way. I have no problems driving through them myself (I think) but have had to avoid accidents from careless others that would not have occurred had there been lights or stop signs.

Samir Mehta | September 20, 2015
[hidden by request]

Mike Eberhart | September 21, 2015
As I lived in Europe for 2.5 years, I love traffic circles. It speeds up the traffic so much better. But of course, the drivers over there are also way superior to drivers in the US. I have a traffic circle near my house here in Illinois and I love using it. However, everyone I see driving through there acts like they are totally confused when driving up to it. It's not that freaking difficult.

Scott Hardie | September 25, 2015
I don't really have much opinion of roundabouts, except that Kelly loathes them and complains every time we approach one, and so I selfishly want less of them in my city for that petty reason alone. I do see drivers behaving either incautiously or overcautiously around them, but I expect that to diminish once locals get accustomed to them. I also don't want to put up with even more construction when my route to work already contains several complex work zones, but if it eventually makes for a shorter commute by increasing traffic flow, then I guess I can get behind it.

The flashing red problems sound serious. Perhaps a simple sign next to the flashing red, like "treat as stop sign when flashing," might help? (A local sign here says "stop when flashing" but that can lead to people stopping indefinitely.)

I heard from a Swedish friend that in Germany and a few other European nations, as soon as the light turns green, every driver in line starts rolling forward together, instead of each driver waiting for the car in front of them to move like we do here. This knowledge has really increased my irritation at having to sit still at green lights ever since I heard it, so I apologize for passing it along here. :-P

Mike Eberhart | September 25, 2015
Scott, well, that's partly true about the green lights in Germany. It's really because the traffic lights there work the same in both directions. What I mean by that is, Green turns to Yellow then Red just like they do here. However, when you are about to go again, the Red turns to Yellow then Green. So you have an idea of when to go by that. I really liked that feature.

Scott Hardie | October 10, 2015
Damn. That makes me long even more for a more sensible approach to red lights. :-)

Were there other aspects of driving in Germany that you liked or disliked?

Steve West | October 10, 2015
Yeah, that autobahn "speed limit" thing has always intrigued me.

Scott Hardie | October 10, 2015
Same here. Wikipedia says the advised speed is equivalent to 81mph, but the average speed is equivalent to 88mph.

Mike Eberhart | October 13, 2015
So, the thing with the speed limits on the autobahn.... The entire autobahn is not unrestricted. There are speed limits with unrestricted sections. Most of the time you'll have speed limits of 120KM/h on the autobahn. When you get to an unrestricted section, it's exactly that. You can go as fast as you want. The section of the autobahn from where I lived to the base where I worked was almost all unrestricted. I routinely drove 100-110 mph to work and home everyday. On German holidays, there's usually no one on the roads, so I would get up to about 120-125 mph on the way to work.

With that said, the unrestricted sections can have speed limits at certain times, for instance when there is heavy fog there are signs that come on assigning a speed limit. Also, when there are stau's (german for traffic jam), they will put a speed limit in place, or if there is road construction. Other than that, yes, the autobahn is the place to go if you are a serious speed driver. My Garmin GPS that I have shows my top speed driven is 128 mph.

Another thing I really liked about driving over there is there is absolutely no passing on the right on the autobahn. Also, you can't hang out in the fast lane and cruise. You have to use the fast lane to pass and then get back over. If you sit out there, you have a chance of having a Porsche 911 on your tail flashing his lights at you, plus it's illegal and you could get a ticket. Which, brings up another thing, there aren't cops sitting there looking for speeders. They are doing other things more important. They deal with speeding using speed cameras. As long as you follow the speed limits as posted, you'll be fine. With that said, I did manage to get 4 speeding tickets while over there. :)

Scott Hardie | October 18, 2015
That sounds like the kind of thing that you can get used to quickly and not want to give up. I live near the interstate and use it to get around town, but it's always jammed with cars and I couldn't imagine being able to speed on it. FDOT has just started expanding it to four lanes.

There is such an enormous expanse of open land in the western United States that I'm surprised we don't have highways out there with no speed limits, or at least three-figure speed limits.