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Comment by nameisname | Hacker News Reader

I've driven through an intersection almost daily my entire life. It was switched to a roundabout a few years ago. I have had more near misses in that roundabout from people not yielding or people continuing around in the outside lane than my entire life driving and never had a single issue with the intersection prior to it being a roundabout. I like roundabouts. I would like to see a study on how many near misses happen in roundabout vs. regular intersections. Too much stress.

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That's an educational problem. It's much the same here in Canada (southern Ontario to be exact), but the more roundabouts are installed, the better drivers are at navigating them.

One funny story my wife told me was, she was once a passenger in a car driven by someone unfamiliar with roundabouts. Upon encountering their first one, they proceeded to drive round and round, afraid to exit.

The unfortunate truth, is that because there are so few roundabouts here, driving schools do not make it part of their curriculum.

Chicken, meet egg.

However, I am a firm believer in roundabouts. Ignorance is a poor justification for continuing to build four-way intersections in places that do not require them.

My driving school had us drive 25 minutes just to use a roundabout situated in a small suburban town. Gave us the occasion to practice both roundabouts and highway driving in the same session.

It requires more attention, brings more stress, in exchange for less critical accidents.

I think this is pretty much a constant in road security, where putting more stress and forcing the driver to pay attention leads to overall better outputs (enforced road bumps, sound inducing road sides, fake people display on crossing paths etc.)

PS: on people not yielding, speed are lower than on straight lines so it's still less problematic than usual non yielding. But I hope your neighbors will get used to roundabouts and navigate them better.

I have long suspected that what makes roundabouts safe is that they feel like they aren’t. People speed when the lanes are wide as well. There have been some people experimenting with optical illusions that make highways feel less safe than they actually are, such as forced perspective to make obstacles off the highway look closer, which encourages the drivers to slow down and pay attention.

Brit here. Roundabouts are pretty easy once you get used to them, extensive discussion of associated signage etc from another respondent here as to the need for ancillary features. This, however https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)

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