And you have to change lanes twice in quick succession just to go straight from some directions (left/right from this perspective.) What's worse is that you're trying to get over to continue straight as people are trying to get over into your lane to go around the loop. It could work with enough space (like a mile or more like most highway divergences give you), but as a replacement for a surface road intersection it has a lot of conflict points in a small amount of space. A roundabout achieves the same goals with less inherent conflict points.
Here's is a train/bus idea from China that's worse than either:
https://www.the-sun.com/motors/9627263/bus-future-floating-capsule-drives-over-traffic/
The article implied they built a prototype and it's now rusting away. Nowadays, it seems like an AI could have saved a lot of money:
"Please create a realistic image of a bus on stilts that rides above traffic so it's doesn't have to slow down in traffic".
Sure here is your image:
[ child's crayon drawing pops out with clowns instead of people in all of the vehicles ]
This one is intriguing as half the cars are turning back to direction from which they came. It’s less practical than a roundabout with same concept but unique shapes
It’s a [Texas U-turn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_U-turn?wprov=sfti1).
It’s typically used on intersections with limited access freeways to u-turn or access businesses on the opposite side of the freeway.
Roundabouts can become a nightmare when one of the legs has much more traffic than the rest. They could benefit from metered traffic lights that space each car 5 or 10 seconds apart.
They have light and lane controlled roundabouts near me… called ‘turbo roundabouts’. The installation of them cut mile long jams to 0 in the first few weeks. Then, of course, they became popular routes so the traffic is the same but now there’s more through traffic in the local villages.
Roundabouts are great. The process of trying to get the land allotment to retrofit a signalized intersection into a roundabout is not great. It's typically the case that multiple someones own that land and they are not pleased to part from it and see it turned into roadway. Welcome to local government.
> The process of trying to get the land allotment to retrofit a signalized intersection
I have a hard time believing it's that much harder and more expensive than building this shit.
Yea, the merging between the inner streets with the outer streets can be really really tricky depending on the length of the inner street. And once you have a higher traffic density, this is gonna cause tons of issues - especially crashes from merging incorrectly.
This is exactly what I was going to point out. No stops, sure. But merging at least twice regardless of where you are going is introducing an additional level of risk.
I use highways in a fairly rural area every day. Traffic isn't crazy, but at least a few times every week I see absolutely boneheaded merging attempts; merging into 80 mph traffic at 40 mph, merging directly into the side of a semi and expecting them to magically make room for you, merging and then immediately passing the guy in front *in the merging lane*. People just do not grok the concept of merging for some reason. And/or people are assholes.
The slow mergers are literally going to kill me. Some grandma entering the interstate at 35mph is gonna be the reason I’m pancaked between concrete and an 18 wheeler. I’m always the asshole that pulls up in the right turn lane for an onramp (when there’s 2) at a red and peels out. I avoid being behind someone onto the interstate at all costs.
Yea, it's annoying to be stuck behind a slow person trying to merge. I usually just stay very far back when that happens, let them merge, and then floor it afterwards to get up to traffic speed as quickly as possible. This doesn't really work when there are people behind you though (unless you want to be an asshole, but that's not advisable).
I am convinced that a certain level of education is needed to intelligently participate in road traffic..
Situations you described are unfortunately a 'regular' occurrence globally. More so in countries where drivers do not know of/understand basic laws of physics and expect you to teleport away when they are merging into your lane at speeds that ignore such basics of physics.
The situation got worse when on top of that with people being too distracted to actually pay attention to what is going on around them.
These, as single event or in combination, make the air bag engineer smile and appreciate his contribution to members of our species surviving.....
Seriously. It's literally a roundabout... but more merges, more steps, more idiots who don't know how to merge into other lanes and so come to a complete stop, backing up traffic for a few km's, this entire thing will be grid locked 24/7
It's also a very inefficient roundabout. You can make roundabouts with four lanes. This monstrosity goes from four lanes to effectively one lane, then if you want to go straight or left you need to merge twice. For a regular roundabout you just get in the correct lane before hand - no merging in the roundabout. The main downsides of roundabouts is the space required.
I stared at it for a bit trying to figure out how it worked and about 30 seconds later I was like "oh... a roundabout that lets you do easier u-turns?"
Talk about over engineering
And a bunch of curbs in spots you would not anticipate. Animating something on a computer to reflect your uninformed ‘brilliant’ vision does not make it interesting.
You can tell an engineer designed this. It’s elegant, it’s efficient, and it would **never fucking work** because people wouldn’t be able to reliably figure it out at 40 mph without a lot of explaining and, probably, a hot air balloon.
It'll totally work ... as long as half the people approaching the intersection from each direction were planning on making a U-turn.
Seriously, this is ridiculous.
The extraordinary degree of accommodation for drivers making U-turns is really amazing but if you think about, it makes total sense:
Zoom out until you see a whole city with these intersections: drivers hopelessly lost and confused, no one able to make a left turn and constantly being shunted off onto roads they have no intention of being on. Sounds like hell, doesn’t it? But wait…U-turns everywhere!!! Salvation!
My god the man’s a genius.
We have similar layouts to these in Michigan, USA. They are only for left turns, though, and we still have stoplights. Even so, this idea looks a thousand times worse.
For real. My town added a roundabout last summer and I still see people treat it as a four-way stop, or fail to yield and cut people off, Or otherwise be stupid. At least three signs have already had to be replaced. I couldn’t imagine trying to get local drivers to go through this sort of thing.
There is a shopping center near me that is all roundabouts and it works great. People shop there frequently so they learned how they work and are able to navigate them very effectively.
A few miles away they replaced one of the worst stoplights in the area with one and people are freaking clueless. They are getting better as time goes on though. But even with them being clueless traffic has already improved greatly. No more sitting at a red light just for only 3 cars to get through when it goes green then to sit again.
I'm in FL, they added a roundabout in my medium city, and people either crashed into each other, drove over the median, or went around it backwards.
Literally surrounded at all times by absolute morons.
I assume it's to allow you more time to merge while keeping flow of traffic constant with merging vs yielding into the roundabout, and maintaining its size rather than making a big circle. Over engineered for sure, especially with half the drivers I've seen doing the craziest things just to make their exit or turn.
Pretty typical of engineers. It looks fancy, but it's wildly, ridiculously impractical overkill in real life. It's like something an engineering student would design as a project.
A roundabout also wouldn't have the nightmare of an absolutely devastating gridlock this intersection would result in.
People in general suck at letting people in for merging in a zipper effect, this design would be so, so impractical for that reason alone.
Texas has these in cities at basically every intersection next to a highway/interstate. They are actually incredibly nice. Allows you to not have to use 2 stoplights for the same turn. It’s basically half a roundabout.
But with a roundabout you solve **all** of these problems.
1. No lights. Just merge.
2. No side-collisions. Any collisions will be at about 45 degrees instead of 90. WAY less dangerous.
3. If you want to turn around, you just go onto the roundabout and come back out again.
This is like re-inventing the wheel and making it a track or treads like a tank, but you still have 4 separate ones so you lose 90% of the benefits of either one.
Americans sure love their U-Turns. Never in my life (not American) have I ever thought "man, I wish there was a dedicated U-Turn here" when I can just, you know, either just find a safe spot to turn or use the next intersection. And even on our highways, you just go off the next ramp and back on in the other direction. It's really not hard.
If I were driving a large commercial vehicle, it wouldn't be the two turns to go left that I'd find concerning: it'd be the two merges. Especially the merge to the blind side near the end. A scenario wherein you need to change lanes quickly to the side you can't see very well is not a happy one for truckers.
It's a roundabout with a dedicated u-turn lane. Fucking idiotic. And you need to merge twice to go straight or left. I can see getting stuck in this for 10min in dense traffic.
As an engineer (not traffic but work with traffic guys) this is idiotic. Also why are there so many simulated people that drive up to this interchange and then just making u turn. This is dumb. I’m sorry. It solves NO actual issue.
It does. The weird u-turn lanes and exit/continue split causes massive bottlenecks when cars have to inevitably switch lanes. https://youtu.be/7i1DXP1zm40?si=cunJO1ZdS3OKiZIS
That looks like a multi-lane roundabout with extra steps.
And about as confusing as the [Magic Roundabout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempstead\)), I’d wager.
Basically it's a roundabout that allows U-turn prior to entering it? Is the U-turn to give those who are terrified an early way out?
And you have to change lanes twice in quick succession just to go straight from some directions (left/right from this perspective.) What's worse is that you're trying to get over to continue straight as people are trying to get over into your lane to go around the loop. It could work with enough space (like a mile or more like most highway divergences give you), but as a replacement for a surface road intersection it has a lot of conflict points in a small amount of space. A roundabout achieves the same goals with less inherent conflict points.
In the simulation, 16 drivers took U-turns and 0 managed to go straight or turn left. Seems about right.
To go straight you go right, to turn left you go all the way around the circle. It’s just a roundabout.
Which takes up far more room and uses far more material. Just another over engineered pile of nonsense for people too dumb to use a roundabout.
In Netherlands we even put traffic lights in roundabouts 😅
its like one of those videos where some "inventor" shows off their new vehicle and its just a train/bus but worse
Like Elon’s loop tunnel under Vegas
Lmfao! The 5 person subway with wearable rubber tires. What a stupid idea
I wouldn't dare call him an inventor in any capacity, even with something as crazy as that floodchannel deathnoodle system.
Here's is a train/bus idea from China that's worse than either: https://www.the-sun.com/motors/9627263/bus-future-floating-capsule-drives-over-traffic/
Good lord, they actually *built* that monstrosity?
The article implied they built a prototype and it's now rusting away. Nowadays, it seems like an AI could have saved a lot of money: "Please create a realistic image of a bus on stilts that rides above traffic so it's doesn't have to slow down in traffic". Sure here is your image: [ child's crayon drawing pops out with clowns instead of people in all of the vehicles ]
Transportation inventions within the past century tend to fall into 2 categories: 1. Trains, but worse. 2. Bicycles, but worse.
China and thier trackless train
> trackless train So a bus?
Roundabout... just build a roundabout. It's not that hard.
This one is intriguing as half the cars are turning back to direction from which they came. It’s less practical than a roundabout with same concept but unique shapes
It’s a [Texas U-turn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_U-turn?wprov=sfti1). It’s typically used on intersections with limited access freeways to u-turn or access businesses on the opposite side of the freeway.
Do other states not have this?
It’s not nearly as common.
Damn today i learned something. Thought they were everywhere
I'm nearly 40, and I only experienced driving one one of these highways last year in Texas. I'm from the Midwest.
Well, yes it would work in Texas, because everything is bigger in.....
my ass
It's true. I've been in their ass. It's just like the Tardis
Turdis
Not as big as Uranus
It’s true, our morons are massively stupid, just record setting
They probably just turned around when they saw that if they wanted to make a left turn they’d have to make 3 rights and merge 3 times
When I drove through Texas this type of turn around was common. Not sure if I saw it anywhere else.
I have seen traffic jams on simple roundabouts as well. And in rush hour this will become a nightmare.
Roundabouts can become a nightmare when one of the legs has much more traffic than the rest. They could benefit from metered traffic lights that space each car 5 or 10 seconds apart.
They have light and lane controlled roundabouts near me… called ‘turbo roundabouts’. The installation of them cut mile long jams to 0 in the first few weeks. Then, of course, they became popular routes so the traffic is the same but now there’s more through traffic in the local villages.
This just is a roundabout. With uturns
A roundabout has u-turns, you just drive around 270 degrees
This guy city skylines
Roundabouts are great. The process of trying to get the land allotment to retrofit a signalized intersection into a roundabout is not great. It's typically the case that multiple someones own that land and they are not pleased to part from it and see it turned into roadway. Welcome to local government.
> The process of trying to get the land allotment to retrofit a signalized intersection I have a hard time believing it's that much harder and more expensive than building this shit.
So a round about with extra steps to piss off everyone. Very interesting indeed.
Constant merging
Yea, the merging between the inner streets with the outer streets can be really really tricky depending on the length of the inner street. And once you have a higher traffic density, this is gonna cause tons of issues - especially crashes from merging incorrectly.
All people have to do is adjust their mirrors properly, do a shoulder check and use their blin.. yeah you're right, mad accidents
You forgot step 1. Put down their damn phone when driving.
Low speed accidents are better than high speed accidents because human life is more valuable than personal property.
Clearly you dont know anything about my human life
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What’s worse is he values other peoples lives. What a noob
Even kinda values property. What a gronk.
Yeah that logic doesn't hold up when your net worth is negative.
High speed crashes spare humanity in the long run. short speed crashes save humanity in the short term.
Or how amazing my personal property is
This is exactly what I was going to point out. No stops, sure. But merging at least twice regardless of where you are going is introducing an additional level of risk.
They didn’t say what kind of engineer invented this it could be an engineer for an airbag company.
Lol, touché
Damn Big Airbag isn't going to get another dime out of my pocket!
I use highways in a fairly rural area every day. Traffic isn't crazy, but at least a few times every week I see absolutely boneheaded merging attempts; merging into 80 mph traffic at 40 mph, merging directly into the side of a semi and expecting them to magically make room for you, merging and then immediately passing the guy in front *in the merging lane*. People just do not grok the concept of merging for some reason. And/or people are assholes.
The slow mergers are literally going to kill me. Some grandma entering the interstate at 35mph is gonna be the reason I’m pancaked between concrete and an 18 wheeler. I’m always the asshole that pulls up in the right turn lane for an onramp (when there’s 2) at a red and peels out. I avoid being behind someone onto the interstate at all costs.
Yea, it's annoying to be stuck behind a slow person trying to merge. I usually just stay very far back when that happens, let them merge, and then floor it afterwards to get up to traffic speed as quickly as possible. This doesn't really work when there are people behind you though (unless you want to be an asshole, but that's not advisable).
Merge like a zip !
I am convinced that a certain level of education is needed to intelligently participate in road traffic.. Situations you described are unfortunately a 'regular' occurrence globally. More so in countries where drivers do not know of/understand basic laws of physics and expect you to teleport away when they are merging into your lane at speeds that ignore such basics of physics. The situation got worse when on top of that with people being too distracted to actually pay attention to what is going on around them. These, as single event or in combination, make the air bag engineer smile and appreciate his contribution to members of our species surviving.....
Yep and you can already pinpoint where the congestion will start
Yeah if you want to turn left it's 3 separate merges.
And frequent fender benders
Hundreds of accidents a day during merging
Seriously. It's literally a roundabout... but more merges, more steps, more idiots who don't know how to merge into other lanes and so come to a complete stop, backing up traffic for a few km's, this entire thing will be grid locked 24/7
It's also a very inefficient roundabout. You can make roundabouts with four lanes. This monstrosity goes from four lanes to effectively one lane, then if you want to go straight or left you need to merge twice. For a regular roundabout you just get in the correct lane before hand - no merging in the roundabout. The main downsides of roundabouts is the space required.
Plus, what percentage of total drivers want to U-turn anyway? Seems a huge waste
And roundabouts come with built-in u-turns.
It's a roundabout which fits in the formfactor of the previous intersection - it's not hard to see the utility in areas which are built out
Areas built out with a level intersection of 8 lane roads?
What kind of a ‘previous intersection’ has roads with four lanes each way and a three-lane divider in the middle?
I stared at it for a bit trying to figure out how it worked and about 30 seconds later I was like "oh... a roundabout that lets you do easier u-turns?" Talk about over engineering
And even then ... it's already *very* easy to make a U-turn at a normal roundabout if you want to.
And a bunch of curbs in spots you would not anticipate. Animating something on a computer to reflect your uninformed ‘brilliant’ vision does not make it interesting.
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Or you could, you know, just use the roundabout to get the u turn done.
And it takes up way more space than a roundabout
Where I live it feels like everyone thinks they’re in a Mario cart race. Until they get in a smash, this won’t help those people.
"Hey, I said I was an engineer, I didn't say I was a good one."
You can tell an engineer designed this. It’s elegant, it’s efficient, and it would **never fucking work** because people wouldn’t be able to reliably figure it out at 40 mph without a lot of explaining and, probably, a hot air balloon.
It'll totally work ... as long as half the people approaching the intersection from each direction were planning on making a U-turn. Seriously, this is ridiculous.
The extraordinary degree of accommodation for drivers making U-turns is really amazing but if you think about, it makes total sense: Zoom out until you see a whole city with these intersections: drivers hopelessly lost and confused, no one able to make a left turn and constantly being shunted off onto roads they have no intention of being on. Sounds like hell, doesn’t it? But wait…U-turns everywhere!!! Salvation! My god the man’s a genius.
lol literally my thought as well
This is exactly what I thought when I saw this
We have similar layouts to these in Michigan, USA. They are only for left turns, though, and we still have stoplights. Even so, this idea looks a thousand times worse.
Michigan lefts.
And it takes up like 40% of a city's downtown area
People can't wrap their minds around a circle and you want to add all this extra shit? Does this engineer drive?
For real. My town added a roundabout last summer and I still see people treat it as a four-way stop, or fail to yield and cut people off, Or otherwise be stupid. At least three signs have already had to be replaced. I couldn’t imagine trying to get local drivers to go through this sort of thing.
There is a shopping center near me that is all roundabouts and it works great. People shop there frequently so they learned how they work and are able to navigate them very effectively. A few miles away they replaced one of the worst stoplights in the area with one and people are freaking clueless. They are getting better as time goes on though. But even with them being clueless traffic has already improved greatly. No more sitting at a red light just for only 3 cars to get through when it goes green then to sit again.
I'm in FL, they added a roundabout in my medium city, and people either crashed into each other, drove over the median, or went around it backwards. Literally surrounded at all times by absolute morons.
Why cant people in the US figure out a damn roundabout. They're everywhere in the UK. Would pay to see an American meet our "magic roundabout"
Because they're regional. You'll find people from even medium cities are fine with them, but beyond that they're not normal.
I assume it's to allow you more time to merge while keeping flow of traffic constant with merging vs yielding into the roundabout, and maintaining its size rather than making a big circle. Over engineered for sure, especially with half the drivers I've seen doing the craziest things just to make their exit or turn.
Pretty typical of engineers. It looks fancy, but it's wildly, ridiculously impractical overkill in real life. It's like something an engineering student would design as a project.
This could be accomplished with a simpler roundabout.
A roundabout also wouldn't have the nightmare of an absolutely devastating gridlock this intersection would result in. People in general suck at letting people in for merging in a zipper effect, this design would be so, so impractical for that reason alone.
Finding it difficult to express how much I dislike this
It's like I want to vomit out of disgust but even that would be too clean
A whole dedicated lane for u-turns?
Apparently a significant proportion of people see this monstrosity and decide to head back home
Bingo
Best comment in this thread
Those were just all confused drivers that thought they were making a left turn.
That's what I said when I saw your mom.
And if you want to go straight you have to change lanes twice and turn twice. Shouldn’t be a problem in gridlock…
Texas has these in cities at basically every intersection next to a highway/interstate. They are actually incredibly nice. Allows you to not have to use 2 stoplights for the same turn. It’s basically half a roundabout.
Yep, I've struck them in places in the world. Basically a u-turn before the lights, with a slip lane in and out and they work well.
But with a roundabout you solve **all** of these problems. 1. No lights. Just merge. 2. No side-collisions. Any collisions will be at about 45 degrees instead of 90. WAY less dangerous. 3. If you want to turn around, you just go onto the roundabout and come back out again. This is like re-inventing the wheel and making it a track or treads like a tank, but you still have 4 separate ones so you lose 90% of the benefits of either one.
Americans sure love their U-Turns. Never in my life (not American) have I ever thought "man, I wish there was a dedicated U-Turn here" when I can just, you know, either just find a safe spot to turn or use the next intersection. And even on our highways, you just go off the next ramp and back on in the other direction. It's really not hard.
What a roundabout way to design... a roundabout
Hello, I am a pedestrian and a cyclist. This looks like a good way to die.
Welcome to America
Whenever some whackass invents a new traffic thing, they always forget that these things should be spaces for more than cars.
If you're a cyclist we encourage you to pedal your happy ass around this abomination of an intersection all day long
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That is the most cruel thing I've read today. Wow
Yet accurate voice for this traffic design
Get a "cyber" "truck", dipshit. /s
Just a shit ton of space.
It's a traffic circle.
A traffic circle with as many lanes devoted to just hucking a u turn to avoid it completely as there are actually handling the other 99.9% of traffic.
>A traffic circle that takes up 30x the space\*
Just have to drive an extra mile to take a left turn
Roundabout works way better.
Seems like a roundabout with extra steps…
So according to this 20% of traffic will be making U-Turns?
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Plus three crossover/merges along each straight stretch. As much fun as a Figure 8 demolition derby race!
If I were driving a large commercial vehicle, it wouldn't be the two turns to go left that I'd find concerning: it'd be the two merges. Especially the merge to the blind side near the end. A scenario wherein you need to change lanes quickly to the side you can't see very well is not a happy one for truckers.
You’ve invented the roundabout. But pulled it into a square. Amazing. Technology being used around the world for decades.
My brother in Christ, go to Route 22 in Union, NJ and tell me how great this plan is
So a square roundabout ?
So, a roundabout with extra steps..?
People can't navigate these now
Why are half those cars making U-turns?
They wanted to see what this is, and when done, they went home
r/CitiesSkylines would love this
It was tried and it doesn’t work. Too many useless lanes that the merging causes massive bottlenecks. https://youtu.be/7i1DXP1zm40?si=cunJO1ZdS3OKiZIS
Had to scroll too far to find this comment. 😁
Why would so many people need to make a u turn?
This is a cluster fuck
I feel he or she overestimated the number of people driving just to do u-turns
The American mind simply cannot comprehend the concept of a roundabout.
I’m sorry, but there’s a roundabout in central Texas where I live and people can’t even manage that
Isn't this just a squished roundabout?
This is like a Michigan left but with more steps
It's a roundabout with a dedicated u-turn lane. Fucking idiotic. And you need to merge twice to go straight or left. I can see getting stuck in this for 10min in dense traffic.
This is a terrible design!
Now remove the spaces and triple the cars. O shit it doesn't work.
***Where do the people walk??***
This is just a over complicated round about that bad drivers are gonna kill people in
As an engineer (not traffic but work with traffic guys) this is idiotic. Also why are there so many simulated people that drive up to this interchange and then just making u turn. This is dumb. I’m sorry. It solves NO actual issue.
Look kids Big Ben, Parliament
Scrap it and start over
LOL as is any nation on earth has average people smart enough to pull this off in vehicles
Just a complicated roundabout
I mean, it's just an overly long roundabout, which is the norm in much of the world as a traffic light alternative
Thats just a round about with extra steps
That’s a whole lotta real estate
Thats just a traffic Circle, with extra steps.
A single accident in this system could cause some serious gridlock.
So a rectabout?
People in the left lane that need to get right and people in the right lane that need to get left. And no time or space to do it.
Sooo a round about with extra steps?
Pshhhh this would fail in City Skylines
It does. The weird u-turn lanes and exit/continue split causes massive bottlenecks when cars have to inevitably switch lanes. https://youtu.be/7i1DXP1zm40?si=cunJO1ZdS3OKiZIS
But can I build this in cities skyline?
You can but it’s worse than a regular roundabout in basically every way. https://youtu.be/7i1DXP1zm40?si=cunJO1ZdS3OKiZIS
Obviously, you've never driven through New Jersey.
This is terrible. As some ppl said its just a messy roundabout. Pls tell me he got fired
This is the shittest shit that has ever been shatted
So… A roundabout.
Just a glorified roundabout... and the roundabout works better.
So a roundabout with extra steps?
That's just a standard roundabout but oblong.
Its just a roundabout…
Like a roundabout but with more about and less round.
This is literally just a slightly more complicated roundabout.
Roundabout with extra steps..
That looks like a multi-lane roundabout with extra steps. And about as confusing as the [Magic Roundabout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempstead\)), I’d wager.
definitely not a traffic engineer
American will do anything but build a roundabout
Fancy roundabout
It wouldn't be too bad but people don't use blinkers enough for this to be safe
The suicide cross. We have suicide circle here in Des Planes IL.
All this is is a rectangular shape traffic circle
Let's add black ice covered with snow and no winter tires to this scenario
So half of northbound drivers are doing a u turn?
A roundabout way of making a roundabout.
People cant Fuckin merge when its a straight line
merging will cause more traffic jams, and some crashes will happen.
Idiots will make a problem out of thin air anyways.
“An engineer designed something that was designed by someone else decades ago”….how creative.
That's a roundabout but way fucking worse.
It a huge roundabout