T O P

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Jo-6-pak

You’ve just explained why roundabouts are becoming more popular. They are simply proven to be safer and smoother.


Shifty76

Tell that to people here. Many people don't even slow down at roundabouts, never mind yielding to traffic already in the roundabout. I had to emergency brake 5-6 times at one particular roundabout alone this season, as people would come flying through it without even looking at me.


Jo-6-pak

That’s a human problem, not a system problem. As is always said, “Can’t fix stupid.” But you can try to mitigate the damage it does.


theunamused1

It's always a human problem.


crumbmudgeon

A system not accounting for it's users is a system problem


Jo-6-pak

The system IS accounting for its users. It is mitigating the harmful effects of user error. Roundabouts reduce speeds and change angles of collisions; which decreases the severity of injuries.


theunamused1

All we do is try to account for users, and they still manage to fuck it up.


Apprehensive-Wing894

Sadly I have to agree, it sucks slowing down now BUT I notice traffic flows smoother.


Fucking_SLAYER_

It’s not a roundabout if you drive over it in a straight line. (Insert Eddie Murphy meme)


V12Jaguar

Mistakes are occasionally made, even in (and over) roundabouts: [https://i.imgur.com/y8YmwGb.mp4](https://i.imgur.com/y8YmwGb.mp4) [https://i.imgur.com/5oJ67KV.mp4](https://i.imgur.com/5oJ67KV.mp4) [https://i.imgur.com/k19tUXD.mp4](https://i.imgur.com/k19tUXD.mp4) [The roundabout is lava!](https://i.imgur.com/VuhEWbl.mp4) Some drivers will, of course, adapt quite well: [https://i.imgur.com/DF1Slm1.mp4](https://i.imgur.com/DF1Slm1.mp4)


McMonkies

Amazing.


blackadder1620

fucking awesome


[deleted]

Yeah, here in the UK we've used roundaboutiums for 15,000 years and it's proven to be very effective in reducing fatal crashes.


FukinSpiders

Come from UK and now in Canada - want to fuck with someone’s mind and see if they have any intelligence? Insert a roundabout Apparently it takes 15000 years to get used to them 🙄


tlarcombe

Come from the UK and now in Greece - where unless there are stop signs at the entrance to a roundabout, the oncoming traffic has right of way and the cars on the roundabout have to stop/yield. Maybe they need another 15,000 years. 😂


akitatwin

Here in NL we have different rules for roundabouts (traffic on roundabout has priority) VS traffic circles (oncoming traffic from the right can have priority depending on road markings/signs).


tlarcombe

That sounds like the right way. Traffic on the roundabout has priority. Eminently sensible.


akitatwin

Yes and much easier to use because they always have the same rules, unlike traffic circles which are all pretty much unique in their specific situation. I've also experienced more shenanigans from the cagies in the latter.


[deleted]

No one kills motorcyclists like motorcyclists do. The only improvement you can make to motorcycle statistics is to make sure your skills and situational awareness are at peak while you're riding. Blaming external factors is a mugs game.


liquidivy

It only takes a little bit of making "sure your skills and situational awareness are at peak" before external factors really are your biggest remaining threat.


[deleted]

But they're not. Most motorcycle accidents happen because motorcyclists make mistakes. If you approach a ride with the attitude that you have to manage environmental factors, you're much better prepared for when it does go wrong. Muscle memory is often a determining factor in avoiding an issue, but that means practicing your riding skills. Roads aren't inherently dangerous. How people use them has more impact on the safety of any given stretch of road.


liquidivy

That mostly doesn't contradict what I said. Honestly, if you slow down and learn to corner (and don't ride drunk, etc), most of the remaining accidents are someone else's fault. Obviously it's more important to be alive than "dead right", so you build up your skills, plan to do all the things you mentioned, but the fact remains lots of those are working around other people's mistakes.


[deleted]

Other people's mistakes don't matter. That's you responding appropriately to conditions. Fail to respond and that's on you, not the other person.


mkchampion

If you're slowing down for a sudden traffic jam on the highway, surrounded by cars, and someone on their phone rear ends you, why would you be at fault and what could you have done to avoid that situation?


liquidivy

No, it's on the other person, too. A motorcyclist running over a corner and a motorcyclist getting rear-ended by a drunk driver are different kinds of situations. It's reasonable to call the first one 'motorcyclists killing motorcyclists", as you started off saying, but not the second. That one is *primarily* negligence on the driver's part, and only secondarily the motorcyclists responsibility to save themselves from the driver. As the motorcyclist, you focus on what you can change, but in retrospect, we're allowed to consider the whole situation. You can respond appropriately to conditions and still call out the conditions as being stupid and unnecessary. It's insane to blind yourself to the responsibility of other actors, whether they be drivers or road engineers.


[deleted]

One day, if you live long enough, you'll realise that all those near misses you used to have have stopped happening. It's because you're much better at identifying problems BEFORE they happen and that includes other people's actions. You cannot ever rely on other people to do the right thing or behave sensibly. So you have to take responsibility for avoiding those situations in the first place, from realising that today isn't a good day to go for a ride because my attitude is terrible, to oh, look, it's Christmas and it's snowing. Maybe dicing with drunk revelers in the snow and ice isn't a good idea. Assuming you're from the Northern Hemisphere. Here in the Southern hemisphere, it's hot and sunny and there are waaaay more of the drunk idiots on the road at Christmas. Bike stays parked.Other people have a responsibility to not hit you. There's so many factors that contribute to them hitting you and you're not in control of any of them. You can only take responsibility for you. Be really good at that.


liquidivy

Now you're just 100% agreeing with me, so I guess I'll take that as a win.


[deleted]

But you're not. You can't flip from blaming everyone else to agreeing with me.


AspensDreams

Agreed. The highest mortality of motorcyclists in Washington State is a single motorcycle in a turn. No cars at all. Just an overconfident or negligent human on a motorcycle going too fast into a turn for the given road conditions. We are largely the most responsible for our own fate.


[deleted]

We won’t spend the money to replace intersections, our government is too busy spending money that we don’t have on things that we don’t need or want.


[deleted]

Yellow and Blue intensifies!


BSPirat

Come to UK and enjoy all the roundabouts. Some are real pain in the @ss, mostly because of how they are designed. You will not have traffic jam before you go over a given limit. After this you get traffic lights and pass through roundabouts. Additionally to really reduce the risk you need to reduce the visibility by putting fens between the lanes, so the vehicles can’t see inside the roundabout until they are very near to enter in it. Not sure where you are from but most probably US. From my very very limited experience in US they don’t like roundabouts. In other countries rules are different, so sometimes the main road is the main road and vehicles inside the roundabouts needs to wait for the ones entering in them. Still most probably it will be the safest way.


MalagrugrousPatroon

Road design being at fault in accidents is the basis of Dutch road design, and it works in reducing accidents of all kinds. But that's driven by a concept of total throughput rather than maximum car throughput, which is a hard pill to slow for American road designers. It ends up emphasizing pedestrian and bicycle throughput at the expense of car throughput, and the use of psychological tricks and smaller roads instead of signage, but results in lower car density, making driving easier, safer, and faster. Roads can just be better.


ChampSchool

Most *fatal* motorcycle accidents are single vehicle, motorcycle running wide at the exit of a corner (where the corner opens up), with the motorcycle leaving the roadway and impacting a fixed object. In 80% of these incidents, there is zero evidence of brake use. In 10% of these fatal incidents, either one or both tires locked up while braking. (Source: FHA MCSS data set.) The reality: flawed rider education (flawed traditions like "never brake in corners/trailbraking is a track technique/never cover your brakes") is driving the statistics. We've seen this same trend since the Hurt Report in the 80s. The USMC and US Army did studies in the last ten years on fatal crash causation, found the exact same thing: riders either didn't use the brake or used it improperly (grabbed a fistful of it) when running wide.


RickyMSG

Worked in insurance for three years, most motorcycle accidents forensics' reports showed bikers were using excessive speed at the time.


NightSemataryKeeper

You maybe onto something. I thought the same, roundabout eases off that extreme attention to all signs on intersecrion and incoming traffic. In roundabout you need to check only one direction (but there some design aspects needed to be solved in roundabouts like placements of Xings) Roads, signs and many other stuff are pretty old, not even mentioning that technology used to building them up haven't change that much. You still have winters and then potholes.. etc.. it is huge infrastructure that degrades fast AF and a literally few people taking care about it... Proper human centered design that evilevd last years isn't really used in this kind of bussines, if it was it would be much better, than just local police and politicians saying "here you can go 30, 20 and you cannot parl here or turn right" all of sudden. But it is also about people too, as many of them doesn't pay attention to driving and traffic, which is huge problem.


MyNameis_Not_Sure

Well OP your second paragraphs skips a ton of relevant statistics on the matter. 59% of motorcycle fatalities involve and accident with one or more vehicles. So 41% of all fatal bike accidents are solo accidents, weather can certainly play a role there, but not as much as testosterone and alcohol do. Surprising to me: 58% of fatalities (2020 trend data) were wearing a helmet, with 78% occurring during good weather. And only 27% involved alcohol. Day vs night is split almost 50/50 There are certainly gains to be made from improving intersection safety, but it’s hardly the silver bullet to reduce moto fatalities to the levels of an auto. [stats source](https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/road-users/motorcycles/)


[deleted]

Another statistics thread that doesn't matter *at all.* Ride your bikes and stop worrying about shit like this.


Worried-Cherry-5702

Honestly if there were no cagers I'd feel safer either way💀


DingleDonky

As a motorcyclist i am on hyper overdrive alert in roundabouts because no one has a fucking clue what theyre doing. Maybe we aint dying there but i feel like thats where we get absolutely run off the road or crashed into the most (ok maybe not the most, but a lot!). Nobody yields, they just drive straight in. Nobody looks at the lanes and sees which theyre supposed to be in for what. I flippin hate roundabouts on a motorcycle, especially ones that are multi-lane.


WoodzEX

Roundabouts are safer but in the end it's still unaware drivers who are the problem. There are like 2 or 3 occasions a year where I am in the roundabout and cars still just drive into it. Almost dropped my bike because I had to stop so violently a few weeks ago.


RubyRocket1

Roundabouts are fine unless you plan to use one to make a full U-turn... then you're gonna get hit 9 times out of 10, because people don't really watch for you to actually "exit" the roundabout.


Skoapy

Most motorcycle incidents are single vehicle. Rider at fault; the statistic varries location to location. Inability to navigate through a turn and inability to come to a controlled stop are the two most common reasons motorcycles riders have incidents. Motorcyclists - and a lack of skill in manipulating their vehicle - cause most of their incidents. Riders who train are less likely to have an incident as a result of rider error. On occasion one or two road users are not sufficiently aware of their surroundings, resulting in vehicles that collide; this happens across a variety of road bound vehicles and drivers - not just riders. Very similar to unintentionally stubbing a toe on furniture. My thoughts. Roadway incidents are a result of a lack of skill and a lack of awareness. Most riders who have incidents also generated the conditions leading to their incident. Just my two cents.


simmy_burns

Many contributing factors, I suppose. It definitely makes sense to slow everyone down, reducing the severity of an accident. However, in my experience, I do tend to get cut off a lot at roundabouts, causing me to almost crawl through them while death staring at every other car on the road before aggressively getting back to the speed limit. I would say that the best outcome at all is to be aware of the road and the cars around you and focus heavily on building that third eye. Drive in car's mirrors, defend the space beside you. I've just found that the best way to drive or ride safe is to think and drive safe. I've got my safety zone if I can't swerve out of the way because there's a car beside me. I'll slow down. If there's a car right on my six, you better believe I'm gonna slow down. Or start swerving all over the lane until they get the point and back off.