Dear Editor:
RE: Roundabout concerns, Sept. 5.
I agree with last week’s opinion regarding roundabouts as being quite scary and I join many others wondering what is the engineers’ fascination regarding them?
Basically, the reason is that it is rare to have a fatality resulting from a vehicle collision at a roundabout, as all the vehicles are, for the most part, going the same direction and so any impact forces are greatly reduced.
As far as I know, the idea originated in Europe, when only ladies and gentlemen could afford to drive. It was a case of “give and take,” like at a three- or four-way stop and the traffic kept on flowing fairly smoothly. As time went on and more people got cars, politeness sort of “went out the window” and there were so many accidents, despite the “give way” lines, that they ended up putting traffic signals on a lot of them.
Now the roundabout idea has apparently gained a foothold in Canada and is probably here to stay.
There are some rules regarding speed and overtaking on roundabouts, but they never factored in “Canada’s worst driver,” who would somehow make it his business to gain a few milliseconds of travel time and zoom up from behind and cut you off or something equally silly.
There also is the issue regarding tractor trailers, which typically have a difficult time negotiating roundabouts. And then some also have pedestrian crossings and bike lanes to deal with.
I think we were better off with traffic signals equipped with red light cameras and focussed more and getting dangerous drivers off the road – or better still, making it a lot more difficult to pass the driver’s test.
Mac McCulloch,
Fergus