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Old June 8th 04, 07:15 PM posted to uk.transport.london
Richard M Willis Richard M Willis is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Apr 2004
Posts: 17
Default Reduce Traffic - Turn left on a RED

Annabel Smyth wrote in message

Wouldn't it, just! I would die of frustration if I had to drive in the
USA, where every single intersection, no matter how minor, has its
traffic lights..... (on ordinary streets, not motorways, of course - but
Brooklyn or New York.... yikes!).


Do they not have roundabouts in the USA, then ? I admit I've
never seen one but I wasn't looking anyway.

Roundabouts in the UK don't work as well as they ought: where
I live (in PE12) there is a huge A-road which carries about
3600 vehicles/hour, which juncs with three minor roads (about 10
vehicles/hour). The traffic from one axis of the A-road to the
other is continuous, so the traffic from the minor roads never
gets a look-in: you just have to hope to find a slow-coach on the
A-road and belt across like a mad persun. Not ideal, but otherwise
there's no way out (literally: there's no other exit from the villages).

Many roundabouts now have traffic signals, which rather defeats the
object. Some roundabouts are bidirectional and have two levels
of feeder roundabouts, and about three sets of traffic sigs in 100m.
I can't see the Americans putting up with that !

Then, of course, there are French roundabouts, where joining traffic
seems to have priority.

Richard [in PO7]