BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jul 20 - 09:54 AM

If you go to those lovely islands off Cornwall, say "Scilly" or "Isles of Scilly," never "Scilly Isles." And don't miss the farmshop ice cream near the coastal campsite on St Agnes.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: gillymor
Date: 12 Jul 20 - 06:24 AM

That's the one Mr. Red, nothing unusual about the layout, it was the kamikaze driving of the locals that impressed me.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: peteglasgow
Date: 12 Jul 20 - 05:54 AM

i've got a tea towel with the road sign 'keep left' on it. i don't need much more direction than that....

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: G-Force
Date: 12 Jul 20 - 05:22 AM

We had a 'Silly Isles' near where I used to live, between Kingston and Esher. It is now officially named as the 'Scilly Isles'.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Jul 20 - 04:17 AM

The Kigali link does not work
But I assume this is the roundabout. what3words.com/shatters.dive.stretch

We had a spread out 6-way junction near where I lived at the time that had so many islands we called it the Silly Isles. It is traffic lights now. what3words.com/recent.layers.defeat

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Jul 20 - 12:54 PM

We had the first one in the State here. The choice of location wasn't the best and it's (in my opinion) poorly designed*. In four or five years it will be ripped out and replaced with whatever the highway engineering fad is at that time.


*That could also be due to placement -- at an Interstate entrance/exit ramp with at least three side streets with stop lights feeding into the "divisive diamond."

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: gillymor
Date: 11 Jul 20 - 12:07 PM

Yeah Bill, I grew up in the D.C. area and worked right off Dupont Circle for awhile and that whole town is full of them and they added a bit of tension to your commute but then I went to Rwanda in 2005 and encountered this in Kigali, the captial. At rush hour it was just a free for all with no visible lanes and motorbikes and cycles weaving in and out like daredevils and participants in freshly sustained collisions arguing out in the middle of traffic. I was happy to get out in the countryside.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jul 20 - 11:39 AM

That shows in one browser, but not in another. I hope you can see it.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jul 20 - 11:36 AM

We call them 'traffic circles', but they can be just as crazy over here.

Dupont circle in Wash. D.C.

yes, there are 10 streets to consider when deciding whether to go to the inner or outer circle. Also, pedestrians do random things and most taxi drivers assume they have eternal right-of way.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: Helen
Date: 11 Jul 20 - 01:35 AM

Mr Red, thanks for posting that video about the diamond configuration. I like it. Ingenious! While watching it I just have to do a bit of mental gymnastics to translate it into driving on the left and not the right.

Our problem in Oz even with simple, single circle roundabouts is that a significant chunk of drivers don't bother sticking to the speed limit, don't give way to vehicles already on the roundabout, don't use their indicator to tell the rest of us where they are going & when they are leaving the roundabout, and often have an aggressive attitude to any other vehicles which have the hide to get in their way. Quite often they are driving 4WD utes or 4WD Balmain Shopping Trolleys (great big clean and shiny 4WD's which have never seen a dirt road, driven by people who just use them to buy groceries or ferry the kids to school).

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: robomatic
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 11:04 PM

Mr. Red, that looked pretty interesting.

I grew up driving in Massachusetts and adopted the standard Boston entry to what we called 'su-kills' (Circles). Accelerate while crossing yourself!

Alaska has installed roundabouts in several locations and they seem to improve matters so long as you can maintain your traction during icy conditions.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 07:09 AM

I've only been to Colchester once and you've reminded me of that roundabout. I can picture it now!

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: DaveRo
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 07:07 AM

I used often to use the Hemel Hempstead Magic Roundabout, which is essentially the same as the Swindon one, and it works very well. It used to be six mini-roundabouts - against Swindon's five - but one road was closed to traffic a couple of years ago.

The first magic roundabout I met was at Colchester. They were experimenting, and laid it out with white-painted tyres. I went there every couple of months and every time it was different, until it settled down to the concept later followed in Swindon.

Hemel also had a wonderful twin spiral multi-storey car park - one spiral up, one down, with level links between them across the middle (like the staircases at Chambord).

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 06:45 AM

There's a similar magic roundabout at the Plough junction in Hemel Hempstead. We have two very vexatious double roundabouts in Launceston and a couple of very tricky ones in Truro. I heard recently that it's illegal to drive over the middle of a mini-roundabout. That makes me a serial criminal.

Subject: BS: Crazy road junction - safer & better!!
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 03:28 AM

Diverging Diamond looks strange but the statistics prove its worth.

And there is always Swindon UK, Magic Roundabout - which I have yet to visit. Call me a wimp...................