General Road and Highway Discussion

[danbrotherston]

This isn't inherent to roundabouts, of course, and optimistically this will improve as motorists in the Region acclimate to roundabouts, but I don't think it's accurate to say "possibly failing to yield drivers." I would say that the majority of motorists around here do not yield to people on foot as they should. I know that this probably still "only" equates to a short wait to cross in most cases, but it's nerve-racking. It's my thinking that we need to pay attention to not only objective safety, but also perceived safety. If we're trying to encourage people to get around by different modes of transport (I don't know if we are, but we usually say so), the perception of safety is important, too. And convenience.

Again, though, that's not really inherent to roundabouts. People on foot do have the right of way. Maybe that should be enforced.

I'm certainly not going to disagree that drivers fail to yield far far too often. In fact, this was something to get used to in the Netherlands, and heck, even a big North American city like Boston. Upon arriving at a crosswalk, I could just walk out, and I knew traffic would stop. Here, you really do have to make eye contact, and force traffic to stop by sticking a foot out, a hand out, etc. Which brings to your next point of perceived safety. Yes, I think perceived safety is very important for active transportation (although far less for walking than for biking). But I don't think we should trade actual safety for perceived safety if roundabouts are actually more safe, then they're better than signalized intersections even if they're feel less safe. But, I'm all for figuring out ways to make them feel safer too. That being said, I think learning to deal with them, becoming experienced with them (and having drivers actually yield) would do wonders for improving that.

I didn't think that speeds were slower in a roundabout. My understanding was that it was the angle of collisions between vehicles that made them less severe, not the speeds. Most people on foot struck by cars in intersections are struck by turning vehicles- it doesn't seem likely that a vehicle making (say) a right in a signalized intersection with a relatively tight corner would be traveling slower than a vehicle making a right in a roundabout.

When it comes to vehicle-vehicle collisions, lower speeds definitely matter. Cars traveling through a green light might be going 15-20 km/h over the limit. Through a yellow light, even 25 km/h over. Compare at a roundabout where even someone speeding excessively is unlikely to be going more than 40 km/h.

That being said, for pedestrians, you might be right, collisions at roundabouts are probably at the same speed as by a turning vehicle at a signalized intersection, which I think is the most common type of collision. Also, to be fair, roundabouts here have fairly generous turning radii (too much so IMO), and traffic is likely to be going faster there, than at a tight radius right turn--the two or three of those that exist in the region .

However, there are some other types of collisions possible at signalized intersections, for one, not everyone respects signals. Both drivers, and pedestrians might cheat them, and have a resulting full through speed collision. As well, any collision or near collision between turning and straight vehicles might result in a straight vehicle careening into a pedestrian at full speed, or pushing the turning vehicle into a pedestrian.

These collisions are rarer, but are probably responsible for a higher percentage of the injuries than of total collisions, and they're largely eliminated at roundabouts.