Last week, The Coast and the PLANifax design group released a video about Halifax’s crush on roundabouts. It was pretty popular, but the video’s calling out of one driver for not knowing the rules of the road got criticism. Some people thought that black truck was driving exactly the way it’s supposed to. But our bicycling camera guy Uytae Lee definitely felt like he’d been cut off. So we figured another video looking at how rotaries work was in order.
How are you supposed to drive in a rotary? That simple question doesn’t have such a simple answer. The city has detailed (animated!) instructions, which don’t apply to every roundabout. On the road there are lots of signs—probably too many to be useful. Roundabouts are designed to make traffic flow better, but they also have confusion built in too. Sounds like a great recipe for road rage.
And here’s the original rotary video that inspired the response.
This article appears in May 28 – Jun 3, 2015.
It’s a good review. So, where were you in the open public planning meetings when we went over all this? You could have contributed and actually been effective. It’s a good review, for sure; but why not get involved in the first place?
Beyond a badly needed driving lesson for the general public, what needs to happen on this?
Shout out to the Asian chick in the VW approaching from Chebucto who was in the St.Margarets Bay lane who thought I cut her off/was in ‘her space’ (they ended up taking the Purcells Cove left off of Herring Cove Road). fuck you. and fuck your friend who flipped me the bird. I was in the lane going to Herring Cove Road, you were not. duh.
It would depend on where the truck driver came from.
If from the left, you failed to yield. This is one of the more common mistakes, failure to yield to all traffic in the circular roadway, i.e., both lanes.
As depicted by you, the analysis is correct.
This is a poorly designed roundabout in a couple of key ways, which is disappointing considering how much consultation and discussion happened.
In the first pace, the raised center mound obscures ones view across the roundabout, making it harder to see who is entering or already in the roundabout, or to see pedestrians approaching crosswalks, until you are almost upon them. I imagine it is covering some sort of sewage apparatus, but it should have been dug deeper so that it would be level with the ground, or a smaller mound that you can see across.If it’s just decorative, then dig that crap up and make it better right away.
And the exits are far too short between when you leave the center and when you reach the crosswalks: barely a single car deep and not a typical SUV length, which forces all of the traffic to yield to someone crossing if there is already a car in that exit stopped for a pedestrian because their rear is sticking out into the center, as opposed to just whoever is in that exit having to stop. Setting the crosswalks back an additional 15 feet or so would alleviate this problem, and also give drivers exiting more time to see pedestrians and stop for them.
They’ve also done a poor job of instructing people about how to use them,especially signalling: in my experience, only a tiny amount of people using it know they need to signal, so almost no one does. Their interactive guide does tell people to signal, but there is no signage to this effect (yes, i’m aware there are already a ton of signs , but it could be added to an existing one).
But the big problem is driver psychology: North Americans don’t like to yield, and try not to yield because they see yieding as “losing” more often then not, and roundabouts are dependant on yielding being the default action instead of the exception.
Personally I don’t find anything wrong or confusing with any of the new roundabouts. Nor has anyone that I’ve spoken to. I think the confusion rests solely on the individuals that just don’t understand how a roundabout works and their own lack of interest in figuring them out. HRM can do nothing more then paint the appropriate arrows and post the appropriate signs, which they have done.
I wonder how many of the people that have an issue with roundabouts suffer the same confusion at a 4-way stop?