Thursday, October 06, 2005
Roundabout
What is a "roundabout"? First of all, how do you pronounce this word? American English, British English and Indian English - all have interesting variations, which get highlighted with this word. Try it out if you can... it's fun.
Anyway, a roundabout is the British version of a road intersection with traffic lights. A detailed description, with picture, is given here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout . Something like the 'Nehrunagar circle' or the 'Commerce cha-rasta', or 'darpan cha-rasta' for folks from Ahmedabad.
I encountered a LOT of those when I drove thru UK. We had rented a Ford Ghia van (sort of) and drove for about 600+ miles, all on left side of the road. Initially, I hated the idea of having so many roundabouts. They were very confusing. But as I got more "experienced" in driving around, I actually started to realize why they make more sense than having a regular intersection with traffic lights. This will probably not be very relevant to many of you who have not driven around them, but just in case you are curious, here is why I think they are a really good idea:
1) It is hard to create and maintain traffic lights for intersections where more than 4 roads meet. A roundabout is not restricted to that - you can have many more roads meet. That gives much better interconnectivity of roads in the city.
2) If you arrive at a roundabout and don't know where you want to go next, you can keep driving around the roundabout and read all the posted signs thoroughly before taking a decision on where to go. This is a boon when you are cluless about roads (like I was in UK without a GPS). On an intersection with traffic lights, you must decide immediately and go with the chosen road.
3) At a traffic light, you must stop when you see the light turning red, regardless of the volume of traffic in either direction. On a roundabout however, you do not need to stop if there is no traffic coming from your right side. No waiting is good.
4) You save a bunch of money on electricity for traffic lights, you don't need a traffic-policeman and you can plant some trees and create fountains inside the circlular area!
Anyway, so much for the roundabouts... I havn't seen any in Los Angeles. Have you seen them around elsewhere in US? They say there are just too many roundabouts in Netherlands...
Anyway, a roundabout is the British version of a road intersection with traffic lights. A detailed description, with picture, is given here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout . Something like the 'Nehrunagar circle' or the 'Commerce cha-rasta', or 'darpan cha-rasta' for folks from Ahmedabad.
I encountered a LOT of those when I drove thru UK. We had rented a Ford Ghia van (sort of) and drove for about 600+ miles, all on left side of the road. Initially, I hated the idea of having so many roundabouts. They were very confusing. But as I got more "experienced" in driving around, I actually started to realize why they make more sense than having a regular intersection with traffic lights. This will probably not be very relevant to many of you who have not driven around them, but just in case you are curious, here is why I think they are a really good idea:
1) It is hard to create and maintain traffic lights for intersections where more than 4 roads meet. A roundabout is not restricted to that - you can have many more roads meet. That gives much better interconnectivity of roads in the city.
2) If you arrive at a roundabout and don't know where you want to go next, you can keep driving around the roundabout and read all the posted signs thoroughly before taking a decision on where to go. This is a boon when you are cluless about roads (like I was in UK without a GPS). On an intersection with traffic lights, you must decide immediately and go with the chosen road.
3) At a traffic light, you must stop when you see the light turning red, regardless of the volume of traffic in either direction. On a roundabout however, you do not need to stop if there is no traffic coming from your right side. No waiting is good.
4) You save a bunch of money on electricity for traffic lights, you don't need a traffic-policeman and you can plant some trees and create fountains inside the circlular area!
Anyway, so much for the roundabouts... I havn't seen any in Los Angeles. Have you seen them around elsewhere in US? They say there are just too many roundabouts in Netherlands...
