Motorists remaining clueless

[cyclingfool]

In other news, the sky is blue. :rolleyes:

[Steve O]

@dbb 95777 wrote:

Government Executive posted an article that suggested that – wait for it – motorists are often clueless about how to drive.

More and more I am of the opinion that re-licensing should be instituted. Right now someone can take a test and drive around for 10-20 minutes with an examiner when they are a teenager and then never, ever be retested for 50 years or more. In that time, a lot of things change, including how roads are designed, etc.
I would like to believe that driving is a privilege and a responsibility. Why not have people re-license every 5 years? If it costs $100, so be it–that’s the price of the privilege. As part of re-licensing, people would learn about things like cycleways and roundabouts and sharrows and whatever else is new. Better would be to actually have them drive through them as part of the driving test.

I realize this is just crazy talk, but it makes sense to me.

[dplasters]

I just watched the 8 minute video and learned a few things for sure. I would have probably freaked out approaching a 3 lane round-about before.

I would have so little faith in the people in the right lane actually “getting out” of the circle at either the right turn or the straight.

Although living near Fairfax Circle, I’d take a two/three lane round-about any day. That thing (it is not a “circle”) is a complete cluster %$@&.

[jrenaut]

There’s a big difference between understanding a roundabout, which is just a round intersection where no one will ever walk, and an abomination like DuPont Circle, which is what happens when you combine pedestrian traffic with a roundabout. The problem is that traffic lights break the whole idea of a circle for car traffic. And circles without lights are extremely hazardous for pedestrians. So anywhere you have pedestrians, circles suck.

Also drivers are dumb.

[Supermau]

Roundabouts aside, it seems no one knows what YIELD means anymore.

[mstone]

@jrenaut 95788 wrote:

There’s a big difference between understanding a roundabout, which is just a round intersection where no one will ever walk, and an abomination like DuPont Circle, which is what happens when you combine pedestrian traffic with a roundabout. The problem is that traffic lights break the whole idea of a circle for car traffic. And circles without lights are extremely hazardous for pedestrians. So anywhere you have pedestrians, circles suck.

Also drivers are dumb.

Circles are safer for pedestrians than most intersections, if they’re low speed and single lane. The expressway-speed multi-lane circle is a death trap.

[cyclingfool]

@Supermau 95790 wrote:

Roundabouts aside, it seems no one knows what YIELD means anymore.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]6720[/ATTACH]

[Dickie]

“Hey Kids, There’s Big Ben, and there’s Parliament… again”

[jrenaut]

@Dickie 95797 wrote:

“Hey Kids, There’s Big Ben, and there’s Parliament… again”

You know, that scene is really all anyone needs to know about most circles. Miss your exit and you can just keep going and try again. This is why those people in Thomas Circle who turn right from the center lane instead of going around again should get jail time. And again, this is why DuPont Circle needs to die. They took the worst parts of a circle and the worst parts of an intersection of diagonal roads and threw them together with some poorly timed lights.

[Mantadiver]

I had a car slam into me in the traffic circle near the Sequoia office building in Penrose on my motorcycle. I was in the traffic circle halfway around when the car entered and slammed into me. The guy got out of his car and started yelling at me that I had to yield to him, I started to tell him the law which made him madder. Then I saw a policeman and I flagged him down and he asked us what happened and the guy that hit me said that I was in the circle and I should have yielded to him. The cop started writing him a ticket for fail to yield and the guy went ballistic. This guy was convinced that traffic in the circle should yield to traffic entering the circle. He also could give a s#it about the damage he had done to me and my bike.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

They blew it on the new fangled Washington Circle lights too.

[GB]

@Mantadiver 95801 wrote:

…on my motorcycle…

Sorry to hear that you were on a motorcycle.

But how does someone not know to yeild to traffic on the circle, that’s about the only unique rule to traffic circles.

[Mantadiver]

@GB 95804 wrote:

Sorry to hear that you were on a motorcycle.

But how does someone not know to yeild to traffic on the circle, that’s about the only unique rule to traffic circles.

That is exactly what I tried to convey to the guy who ran into me. He was more worried about that he was right and the Cop and I were wrong. When his insurance company contacted me they couldn’t have been nicer. They probably had to listen to him rant on about how it was not his fault and the insurance company knew he was wrong and didn’t want me to sue. I didn’t.

[dbb]

@Supermau 95790 wrote:

Roundabouts aside, it seems no one knows what YIELD means anymore.

I think it involves use of the right pedal on the floor

[Steve]

In your situation, you were clearly right. Because almost everywhere now the entering traffic yeilds.

However……this is going to be a bit crazy, but……in some instances, it works the other way. Technically, in many “traffic circles,” the people in the circle yeild to those entering. In “roundabouts” it happens the way we handle it. Almost all current ones work the way described previously in the thread, but in much of Europe, France I think in particular, they often used to work the other way around. Sometimes this comes about by the fact that the interior, to exit, technically had to switch lanes. The oncoming cars just got to drive right on, holding an outside lane. To exit, cars technically had to switch lanes to the outside, thus yeilding to entering cars, and then exit. It’s kind of like if an oncoming highway lane keeps a lane, and it eventually becomes an exit only (think I-66W from Glebe to Sycamore). Here, the oncoming traffic gets its own lane, not needing to yeild, and exiting traffic has to get over and thus yeild. Circles used to work like that, believe it or not.

Again, not saying you were wrong in your situation, as OBVIOUSLY you weren’t, just a little background.

[Author]

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