Hacker News Reader

Comment by barrkel | Hacker News Reader

I object to your metaphor; stop signs do slow down traffic. If every 4-way stop sign junction had a roundabout (either full-sized or mini, depending on available space), traffic wouldn't need to stop very often, overall throughput would be much higher, and accidents would probably be even less.

4-way stop sign junctions were probably the most asinine, time-wasting, fuel-wasting road control I found when I drove in the US.

View on HN

Discussing this with a US friend, I have come to the conclusion that for single-lane roads, a roundabout is superior to a 4-way stop as you only have to watch one direction for traffic.

Once you get to multiple lanes, the answer is simple: both roundabouts and 4-way stops are inferior...

Yes, cloverleafs are necessary for >1 lane per direction.

Nah, we have plenty of 2 lane roundabouts here in Australia, and I'm sure the UK does too. It's really a matter of what you're used to. They don't seem to get used much in the US from what I see.

Totally agree with this, and love them in the common case (intersections of single lane streets). And we have a few in various places, however the lack of experience with the American driver leads to some interesting results. One person insisted that when there wasn't a light you had to treat it like a 4-way stop!

4-way stops are popular because of construction cost and space savings. Different optimizations yield different problem areas.

I don't think there are many 4-way stops in the US that cannot be replaced by a mini-roundabout for reasons of space or cost; mini-roundabouts are just solid white circles of paint on the ground, with a more or less pronounced mound. Their primary purpose is to trigger the right-of-way rules of a roundabout; often the junctions they are used on are too small to actually go "around" the mini-roundabout, in London (where I live) at least. Roads (and hence space for road furniture etc.) in the US are much larger than most roads in London.

A standard 4-way stop has two roads with two lanes each (both directions). No space beyond the widths of the road is used. They are very space efficient. It is also easy to build as an afterthought (just cross the roads).

I cannot find a roundabout design that fits into that same space. Looking at the Wikipedia entry[1], it seems much larger than a standard 4-way. Given the block patterns in American suburbs and housing developments, the extra space would eat into someone's yard.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout

Mini-roundabouts are much smaller; most UK roads do not have two lanes in either direction, so junctions are naturally smaller too.

A road with two lanes in either direction would normally be major enough to warrant traffic lights; or, if it's just a particularly wide suburban road, then the lane closest the pavement is often used for parking, and the road would narrow to one lane (with advantages in reducing speed somewhat) for a roundabout.

We also have 4-way stops but you don't actually stop entirely, that would be counterproductive wouldn't it. You "stop" (in a grey sense of the word), look left and right, then you go.

Legally, the 'grey' stop doesn't work. I have been given a ticket by a cop. Yes, it may work 90% of the time but if you get caught, you get 2 points (in NJ) and your insurance goes up.

Well, the problem is that you're in New Jersey. There's a reason it's called the California Stop.

Can't comprehend why you were downvoted. Unless Americans are aware of a more asinine, time-wasting, fuel-wasting road control.

I'm not sure it's more asinine, but in my town there are sometimes lights where a major road intersects a single lane road with almost no traffic. But typically these lights do not have a traffic sensor, so they just regularly interrupt the flow of traffic on the major road. We also have lots of untimed lights.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com