Are Roundabouts Actually Safe for New Drivers?

A driving instructor brought up how roundabout are not good for new drivers. So today I wanted to comment on that.
--

[smallmj]

Roundabouts need to be designed to slow traffic enough to make pedestrians safe.

[Cyrus]

Traffic lights were one of the main causes of Stroads as well as Sprawl.
It led to increased number lanes from a two lane Main Street especially at an intersection.

[zephaniahgreenwell]

I was ready to disagree, but you brought me around. Excellent nuanced take.

[Headgamerz]

When I was a new driver I was terrified of the city interstate where you had 8 lanes of high density traffic moving very fast and you often had to merge quickly while being careful of the traffic in front of you stopping suddenly.

You really have to be aggressive on a city interstate. But I don’t know of any driving instructors saying we should get rid of them.

[Kattbirb]

We need to get rid of stroads. There's a 35 MPH stroad in my town that has roundabouts, and they're miserable. Not because of the roundabouts, but so many lanes.
They take so much longer to walk around with so many lanes and people are trying to drive them so fast that it doesn't feel safe to walk or bike, despite the area being surrounded by shops, residences and even an elementary school.

[samdouglas]

Here in New Zealand we have A LOT of roundabouts. The two biggest design sins are unnecessary multi-lane, and unbalanced visibility on approaches.

My town has quite a lot where a two-lane roundabout joins single lane roads, with a very short merge on the exits. This is an awful design because regardless of which lane you're in, you've got to be checking your blindspot because some people treat them as overtaking opportunities. Combined with gardens in the island blocking your view this can be unsafe for pedestrians as drivers attention is needlessly split.

Multi-lane on dual carriageways are inefficient too in practice because the minority of people incapable of correctly signalling or sticking to their lane means drivers become more hesitant to enter when there is a car approaching in the inside lane

[sstraight]

Me too. I wish the roundabouts in my town were accompanied by a real education using all media platforms on how to use them. I drive for a living: hesitation, aggression and general ignorance are the go to approach for most people at these intersections.

[jakeschreiner]

Elizabethtown ky has been installing mini roundabout. They have been great

[blubaughmr]

As a bicycle commuter, since the '70's, I find them scary. Drivers don't want to yield to a bicycle already in the roundabout. I thought maybe it was just because Americans aren't familiar with them, except I've found YouTube has hundreds of videos of bicyclists in England getting clobbered by motorists, and they've had them forever.

In the Seattle area, where we have little ones on residential streets (maybe 20' diameter at the curb), drivers want to pretend they are in England for a moment when they take a left turn, and drive on the left side of the road instead of going around the roundabout. Because drivers don't look for bicycles, all of the sudden I've got a car headed straight for me and I need to somehow get far enough to the side of the road to avoid them, but not clobber the curb, which would also be a broken bones accident.

[BobKartyMusic]

Recently I used the newly-installed roundabouts at a notorious Bay Area intersection - where Gilman St meets I-80, the Eastshore Freeway, and Frontage Rd. in Berkeley. They made the transition from northbound Frontage Rd to the 80E on ramp so smooth - I sailed through without a single stop - that I was giddy with delight!

[logicalfundy]

Also be careful about how roundabouts are combined with stop lights - when a stoplight builds up a whole bunch of traffic and releases it all at once, that can easily clog a roundabout.

[CapitulationTrader]

Traffic calming always is the answer. Always

[Taladar]

I am always surprised how many multi-lane roads the US has considering that we have very few of them here in Germany comparatively speaking and yet our population density is so much higher. Most US states don't even have the population of a mid-sized European city so why are they full of multi-lane roads and even multi-lane roundabouts?

[kevinsmith]

Four-way stops are way more terrifying and ineffective for timid drivers, than roundabouts.

[jonvokins]

I remember when I was young that traffic lights in many towns had a kind of overnight mode where they would change to flashing yellow & flashing red, similar to the single lights you’d see at rural intersections.

Is that familiar to anyone else? And more importantly, does anyone know why that practice stopped so completely?

[alisonmaxwell]

Roundabouts in Australia are used in residential streets and are designed to slow traffic right down. They form an integral part of driver training. There are things that freak out new drivers here way more than roundabouts - lane changing for instance.

[danieljk]

I totally agree that roundabouts are great, but I'm disappointed that the state DOTs and local governments seem to have collectively decided that roundabouts need the same number of lanes as the intersection it replaced, resulting in highly complicated multi-lane roundabouts where a much simpler two or even one lane roundabout would have sufficed due to the greatly improved efficiency compared to a signalized intersection. 3+ lane roundabouts are more confusing and are less safe than than smaller ones.

[kevinconrad]

Sounds like the teacher has not prepped his students about what to do when they use a driving circle.

[UrbanPanic]

How well do roundabouts work as a pedestrian? In person I’ve only seen them used in a suburban context with little to no pedestrian used.

[economicprisoner]

You allude to it: but the smaller, low speed, roundabouts take less space too!