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Comment by andrewflnr | Hacker News Reader

They never show the whole interchange in the article, for some reason. At least in the usual design there are two crossings, since you need one to get you back on the right side of the road again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diverging_diamond_interchange#...

When I first encountered one in the wild (2017 in Utah I believe), it sure threw me off, but I navigated it fine by following the signs.

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I always smile a bit when this particular topic comes up on HN.

The first time I saw it here, I noticed there was a lot of confusion about the traffic flow - so I drove to the one nearest me, popped up my drone, and got aerial video of a complete traffic cycle.

It's still in the article years later. It's weird to me to think that random thing I did on a lark is likely to be one of the more durable parts of my personal legacy.

Thank you for recording the video. I figured the intersection would need a duplicate on the other end to reverse traffic flow back into place, and your recording helped me confirm that was actually the case. Seeing it in motion, it's actually better than I originally thought it would be.

They're also often far less confusing than people expect them to be. The interchange where you cross over is generally done at as close to a 90 degree angle as practical, so it "feels" like two one-way roads crossing at an intersection rather than switching to drive on the wrong side of the road.

Noticed that as well. At first I wondered for how long they would be driving left, but then I remembered that highway crossings are often mirrored. An overview of the whole intersection would clear things up a lot.

What's confusing is that most of our attention gets focused on "whoa, weird, driving on the wrong side of the road" and not on what it does to the on- and off-ramps (blue in the linked wikipedia image).

And what is that, in your perspective?

Provide the ability of on- and off-ramp traffic to merge without a signal.

Yeah, that’s a huge benefit for sure

Yeah. Maybe they sent the photographer out to take pictures but didn't really explain the story to them?

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