What should you do if you are in a car accident? Follow these steps
After a car accident, safety should be given immediate priority by stopping, turning on the hazard lights and checking for injuries.
- Roundabouts help eliminate the types of collisions that are likely to cause serious injuries or death.
For more than a few drivers, encountering a roundabout can cause a faster pulse, sweaty sweat, and leave the handles tight.
These circular intersections, where vehicles continue to move or move yields for traffic, have become a favorite of traffic engineers.
Experts say some drivers hate them, but there’s nothing to hate.
Understanding how to navigate them and why they replace more familiar signalized intersections may alleviate some concerns.
Let’s start with some pretty standard questions.
Why have a roundabout rather than a traditional signaled intersection?
For Craig Bryson, a spokesman for the Oakland County, Michigan Road Commission, that’s not just for reasons, but for three main reasons. It’s safety, improving traffic flow, and cost-effectiveness.
Among these, safety is important.
“Safety statistics are kind of whimsical,” he said, pointing to statistics that show a 90% reduction in traffic lethality and a 75% serious injury conflict.
In terms of improving safety, it is difficult to imagine another change that could have similar outcomes, he said.
There are a few things to consider when it comes to traffic flow and cost-effectiveness. Generally, the traffic itself doesn’t stop completely, it keeps moving. And roundabouts actually increase road capacity (30%-50%, according to Bryson).
In the past, the supposed solution to crowding was simply to widen the roads, but Bryson said roundabouts could reduce the need for expansion, and could require the acquisition of private property. Cost-effectiveness comes in part from the need to reconfigure to widen the roads and add more traffic lights.
How does roundabout improve safety?
Simply put, they deal with some of the main factors that lead to crashes, such as speed and competition points, and make crashes more serious.
Speed is the main factor in turning a fatal crash, but Bryson has designed the roundabout by the Road Commission, so traffic moves at 15-25 mph in a circle.
Reducing so-called competitive points that can fill the vehicle is particularly important. And here, the roundabout makes a big difference as the driver doesn’t turn left in front of approaching traffic.
“Left-turn competition is particularly severe. Of the 32 intervehicle conflict points at traditional intersections, 12 are related to vehicles turning left,” according to a video from the Federal Highway Administration, known as the “Principles of Cross Section Safety,” the single-lane roundabouts will be reduced to eight people.
The way people usually die at intersections is often due to the front and T-bone crashes that roundabout designs deal with, Bryson said.
“You’re basically physically eliminating the possibility of any of these types of crashes unless someone flies around the center’s island. This is very rare,” Bryson said.
Slow side swipe and rear end collisions occur in roundabouts, but are usually not seriously injured, Bryson said.
Okay, but how do you navigate these things?
According to the Road Commission, this is what to do:
- Getting closer to the roundabout will slow you down
- Select a lane (find a lane use sign when you are approaching) and stay in the lane until you leave the roundabout
- Suit to pedestrians, bicycles and vehicles in every lane
- Look to the left and continue if there is no traffic. If there is traffic, wait for the opening before entering the roundabout
- Give way to a large vehicle
- If you see an emergency vehicle arrives, you will end the roundabout. Do not pull the roundabout
Roundabouts with a single lane in each direction are rather simple. Bryson said he was passing after surrendering to roundabout traffic, waiting for a traffic gap.
People with multiple traffic are more complicated, and Bryson said, this has more challenges, with drivers trying to change lanes on roundabouts.
How about pedestrians?
“I always succumb to pedestrians,” Bryson said.
The opposite is true, he said.
The islands that divide the detours mean that there are fewer lanes where pedestrians cross at once, as the crosswalks cross those islands.
At traditional intersections, drivers turn left and traffic passes in both directions, and the red right turn may include drivers who cannot see pedestrians crossing the light, Bryson said.
Still, it is worth noting that Oakland County officials may not have the same outlook when it comes to pedestrian safety in all areas. On a recent trip to West Virginia, reporters saw numerous roundabouts in relatively high traffic areas where they thought they had no infrastructure directed towards pedestrian safety.
This underscores the need for all road users to prepare for a variety of scenarios in unfamiliar settings.
What if you’re still worried about navigating the detour?
Bryson said he understands his concerns.
He recalls his first encounter with a roundabout in another state a few years ago, wondering, “What is this?”
But since then, Bryson has become much more familiar. In fact, he recalled the ribbon cutting of the first of his counties on the roads of Tienken, Ranyong and Washington in 1999.
Oakland County is currently the most concentrated in the state, and continues to add other counties.
Bryson’s advice on anxiety:
I go to a nearby roundabout at 7am on a Saturday or early Sunday after several occasions. Being familiar with navigating roundabouts when there is low traffic can help you feel comfortable when there is high traffic.
“If you do it a few times, they’re pretty intuitive. …It’s just that you’re used to them,” Bryson said.
Eric D. Lawrence: Please contact elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Send a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.
