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Comment by eru | Hacker News Reader

Not sure the roundabout is the problem? What alternative would be better?

I mean adding zebra-crossing would be better, but you can combine them with a roundabout, can't you?

I do agree that cars are a big problem. I wonder if we should tax them higher to properly price in their negative externalities. (And Germany already has a lot higher taxes on driving than eg the US.)

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>Not sure the roundabout is the problem? What alternative would be better?

A simple cross intersection controlled by traffic signals.

Yeah, I know I'm gonna get an imperial shit-ton of downvotes for daring to suggest traffic signals, but they are simple and involve traffic coming to a complete stop at the intersection.

Simplicity is a virtue, and it's why traffic signals still reign supreme at least here in the USA.

Roundabouts with "Raised Pedestrian Crossing" (or wombat-crossings as they're called in downunder) are pretty safe without forcing drives to wait for nothing at 3 AM.

Example: https://hdp-au-prod-app-shel-letschatshellharbour-files.s3.a...

The only thing forcing a driver to “wait for nothing at 3am” is their own lack of pragmatic judgement.

Maybe the light enforced meditation time would assist drivers like that in reëvaluating their life choices.

In Australia, there is speed and light cameras everywhere.

Crossing a red light, sometimes even to make way for emergency cars, will earn you 3 demerit points, which gets you over 23% to 13 points and losing your license.

Now it might not seem so dumb to wait 30 seconds, even if it is 3 AM and the road --seems empty.

When one lives under perpetual surveillance, one’s pragmatic judgement reweighs the situation accordingly.

And for the record, “dumb” is your word not mine. People make choices based on their own situational perception. I strive never to mute a person’s lived experience.

You saying “lack of pragmatic judgment” is calling someone “dumb” in more words — and I think it’s telling you can’t own your comment.

I’ll own my comment as precisely not pejorative. But if the shoe fits, go ahead and wear it.

Traffic signals are perfectly capable of switching their operation to avoid needless waiting at 3 am, though many don't.

So you are complaining about the lack of traffic signals, not the roundabout.

I would assume that a 4-way stop sign would also be preferable, as there's a requirement to stop.

The issue is that roundabouts generally only have a yield sign, which means cars are rarely at a standstill. This complicates pedestrians crossing the street.

You can have traffic signals for pedestrians even if there is a roundabout for cars.

Not sure how well that works, if you'd have to keep cars from leaving the roundabout?

> I would assume that a 4-way stop sign would also be preferable, as there's a requirement to stop.

Those seem to be an American thing? They aren't really in use in Germany.

And, in practice, people don't stop at stop signs. So this wouldn't help the original commentor's child survive.

Signalled intersections are likely a lot worse for pedestrians and cyclists, as non-compliant drivers can navigate them at much higher speeds. On account of its shape, it's impossible to blast through a roundabout at, for example, 100 km/h.

Combine with raised pedestrian crossings and you have natural speed bumps reducing car speeds even further at the potential point of conflict.

I think the complaint here is about larger roundabouts that tend to admit higher speeds and have a large radius, not low-speed tight circles in dense mixed-use areas.

For those kind of roundabouts you add signals to the pedestrian crossing. Although above a certain size tunnels or bridges becomes justifiable, but then we are pretty far from urban environments.

Yeah slowing down cars "naturally" by using narrower roads and roundabouts, and then built lots of non-signalled pedestrian crossings (sometimes with bumps) have been a trend for some time. The data seems to support it works.

Well, you could add pedestrian traffic lights around a roundabout, I guess?

Though I guess a zebra crossing would be simpler.

> Simplicity is a virtue, and it's why traffic signals still reign supreme at least here in the USA.

Roundabouts are much simpler, aren't they? They don't even have any moving parts.

>Roundabouts are much simpler, aren't they? They don't even have any moving parts.

With traffic signals, much of the cognitive load is offloaded from the driver. The driver only needs to pay attention to the signal and whether there are any hazards in his planned direction of travel. A four-way stop signed intersection can produce similarly simpler results compared to roundabouts.

With roundabouts the driver needs to count or be thoroughly aware of his planned exit, maintain an appropriate speed and curving direction of travel throughout the roundabout, yield or not yield according to traffic at any given moment, and obviously whether any hazards are ahead or near him. That is not simple.

Keeping drivers alert and paying attention to the road seems like a good idea, doesn't it?

You don't want them to drift off mentally and blindly trust the traffic light?

Just because a driver has less things to attend to does not mean he is less attentive. In fact, I would argue a person becomes less attentive to any given thing the more things there are they have to pay attention to.

Burdening a driver with more (arguably unnecessary) cognitive load is not a good idea.

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