Well you have to have some for people to learn.... Eventually as they become more common, hopefully, things will get better.
I-35 / US 30 Flyover Progress
- Thread starter scottie33
- Start date
I've seen people forget to merge into traffic and just stay on the clover leaf as they don't remember to merge left and just get stay in exit lane. I did it once just to see how long it would take to go around all 4 cloverleafs.
I am not going to hold my breath as pointed previously many people still have trouble with on ramps and they have been around forever.
The other problem is a lot of them are rather poorly designed. Visual obstructions in the middle... small roundabouts where you can't tell until the last second if someone is staying in the roundabout or exiting (leading to people's failures in stopping) etc.
I about rear-ended (not really, I had plenty of time to stop) someone on the roundabout in Ames. I was looking ahead and could see there was no traffic in the circle or coming into the circle so I was expecting to enter the roundabout. Nope, the elderly woman in front of me decided the yield sign was a stop sign. She got the horn.
That's another thing we don't use enough. Honk at them if they and make them feel bad for not understanding how to drive.
Acceleration and deceleration ramps need to be called that, not on/off ramps. Their intended purpose is to accelerate or decelerate to the speed of oncoming traffic so you are allowed to safely merge into the flow.
Definitely an Iowa thing. I’ve become a lot less reluctant to use my horn recently.
Roundabouts when used appropriately are good. In the US they often aren’t. Certain cities put them in where 95% of the traffic goes one direction. They aren’t a replacement to two way stops and they need to be designed so you don’t basically have to stop to enter them.
I've seen people forget to merge into traffic and just stay on the clover leaf as they don't remember to merge left and just get stay in exit lane. I did it once just to see how long it would take to go around all 4 cloverleafs.
That was my go-to move (well 3/4 of it) when leaving football games. The right lane on highway 30 backs way up with people going south on I-35. Stay in the left lane past the traffic and do the I-35N -> Hwy 30 W -> I-35S loops. You get on I-35 much faster and you don't have to be a jerk and cut in line.
There is supposed to be a visual obstruction in the middle, that is proper design. When entering, you're going at a slow enough speed that you don't need to see the opposite side. Additionally, if you could see completely though, it makes it more likely that someone will either not realize it's a roundabout or try to drive straight through, especially at night.
Except that's just straight up not true for the small roundabouts you often see in suburban areas. Even at slow speeds that person coming from the other side could be someone you need to yield to.
They are also going at a slow speed inside of the roundabout, you'll have enough reaction time.
Okay, give me an example.
If it is a small roundabout like you say, the radius is going to be so small that you can't go more than 10 miles per hour through it.
You are supposed to go slow through the round about? I like to see how fast I can go through them on 100th in Johnston. Except for the 1 in the school zone cause that would be unsafe.
If people signaled correctly in roundabouts it would help a lot. You should always signal when exiting but almost nobody does. A few people do if they are turning right but I'd bet less than 1 in 1,000 does when going straight through or turning left.
This is true (and I rarely signal tbh), but in the smaller ones it's not always clear which exit you are taking when you signal, the time between one exit and the next isn't much.
I'm a fan of round a bouts (especially if everyone eventually figures them out), but I know one or two that the small size makes them more challenging.
