Roundabouts vs Traffic Lights

Hate it when you’re the only car stopped at a light? Roundabouts are a solution to that, and more.
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Roundabouts are “safer. They save lives. They cost less!” Carmel, Indiana mayor Jim Brainard explains.

He’s replaced nearly every stoplight in his town with a roundabout. His town now accounts for about 2% of all roundabouts in America.

Roundabouts are safer. A study in Wisconsin found that when roundabouts replaced typical intersections, deaths fell 38%.

Crashes actually rose 12%, but they were more minor crashes.

“Instead of a T-bone, you get a sideswipe,” Brainard explains.

Roundabouts pass cars through intersections faster, they look nicer, save tax money, and pollute less.

Yet America’s politicians have been slow to adopt them. Europe has about 200,000 roundabouts — compared to America’s roughly 6,000.

Why so slow? I ask Jim Brainard in the video above.

[joeybagodonuts]

They also eliminate tickets given out for running red lights and stop signs.

[JoelCreates]

I went through maybe 5 roundabouts in the space of a minute in Ireland, and thought it was ridiculous...then I realized I had just gone through 5 major intersections in under a minute. I now love roundabouts

[noneyabusiness]

They installed a new roundabout in a small town I work at.
A coworker was scared to death of using it.
Another coworker graciously offered to let her follow him through to ease her anxiety.
After they made it through, she passed the nice coworker that guided her through.
5 miles down the road as she approached a 4 way stop with large flashing lights, the coworker watched in amazement as she blew through the stop at 60 mph.

[cerdon]

I just want everyone to realize how much honesty stossel shows.

Stossel makes content about wasteful spending, it's pretty clear he went into this investigation to find out about these useless roundabouts that cost too much. But he found out differently, now here's where it gets important to recognize Stossel's reporting integrity. Unlike most 'journalists' who would scrap such a story because it disagrees with their narrative, stossel posts his findings to challenge even his own biases, which for 2021 is quite impressive.

[Get_yotted]

I like roundabouts, when the road is empty you can pretend you’re in Tokyo Drift for a couple seconds

[sb]

I like them because if I make a wrong turn in my semi truck, the roundabout gives me an easy place to turn around at.

[TonyIaguessa]

We just had 3 installed in our little town, Willard MO and it has been a huge improvement to our traffic issue, cut travel time in half.

[robertdog]

John Stossel's been in the game a long time. He knows how to cram information into a short, entertaining segment.

[smilsmff]

The White house spokesperson gets on one most of the day so they can CIRCLE BACK

[Kagedxp]

It’s kinda funny how Stossle has become one of my favorite YouTubers

[georgetodd]

As someone who grew up in Carmel, I can attest to how great they are! I was actually going through drivers ed when Carmel started making their major highway roundabouts.

[BuddahChief]

"It takes public education" haha, oh the irony

[SuperScopeRawks]

I dont like multi lane roundabouts because people are absolutely awful at merging lanes.

[Jeremy-thpt]

This is why I love Stossel. Nobody else would even think to cover this topic.

[bobgerbracht]

I live in Carmel. Drive through multiple roundabouts every day. My observation after driving through them for years: The single lane roundabouts where one street lane merges into a one lane roundabout are awesome. You save lots of time and can literally drive across town without coming to a stop. The only downside is for folks who get carsick — after swinging through about 15 of them at a decent clip when traffic is light, a passenger with a weak stomach can get queasy.

The multi-lane roundabouts are a different story — especially during rush-hour. The way the multi-lane roundabouts are designed in Carmel is that when two lanes (ie: a four lane road) merge into a two lane roundabout, the left-hand lane is automatically channeled into the inside lane of the roundabout. Because the roundabouts are not large like many in Europe — that driver is often forced to move from the inside lane to the outside lane very quickly in order to get out on their desired street — basically looking over their right hand shoulder while turning the car to the left. Not a good situation in a busy roundabout. Every single person I know has either been in an accident or almost been in an accident when an inside car suddenly cuts across the outside lane to get out of the roundabout. In fact, the story in Carmel is that Mayor Brainard, who is featured in the video and has championed the widespread construction of the roundabouts, has been in 3 roundabout accidents.

In addition, Carmel has many roundabouts that will suddenly change from a 2-lane roundabout to a 1-lane roundabout. So lots of people will enter a roundabout on the outside lane, and then immediately realize their lane is ending. They suddenly will cut into the inside lane to avoid being forced out of the roundabout too early.

So in the multi-lane roundabouts in Carmel, you can get hit without warning either by a car on the inside suddenly cutting to the outside or a car on the outside suddenly cutting to the inside. Have not been in an accident yet, but have had more close calls on the multi-lane roundabouts than I can count.

[goldrussh]

I've been a professional driver of one kind or another my whole life, and I don't like the roundabouts, but I do have to admit they save time. I've done quite a bit of driving around Carmel myself; it should be renamed Traffic Circle City LOL. But waiting for traffic lights and 4 way stop signs in rush hour traffic just doesn't get it, and the roundabouts solve that problem. I think about all we need to do now is get people to learn what "Yield" means 🤣🤦

[briannolan]

If they had roundabouts here in Los Angeles you know the homeless people would be living in the center of them

[Mas]

Now, that's a "circle back" that I can get behind.

[aniquinstark]

I like that they solve the issue of wide left turns being so dangerous.

[ctenos]

I worked in Carmel In from 1996-1998, and then again from 2009-2012. The 1st time there were no roundabouts, and it would take me 45-90 minutes to get to work in the morning mostly because of the traffic backups at 4-way stop signs. The 2nd time I lived further and all the stop sign intersections had been replaced by the roundabouts. Even though I lived further away from work, my commute was only about 15 mins. I love those things.