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Painted Roundabout

From somewhere in Germany, I believe (would be curious to know the exact location), a roundabout with nothing in the center save paint. I’d be curious about the stats for this intersection; on the whole it seems more or less orderly (there’s confusion but low-speed confusion), but some people just seem to blow straight through as if they had a green light in a signalized intersection.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 15th, 2011 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Traffic Culture, Traffic Engineering, Traffic safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

23 Responses to “Painted Roundabout”

  1. Tom Says:
    January 15th, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    Neat! A low-cost way to teach folks to cooperate in intersections. I enjoyed seeing the one red car try to go straight through, only to be schooled by the car coming around from behind that was following the described pattern.

  2. Brian Says:
    January 15th, 2011 at 3:06 pm

    If you’d like to figure out where it is: the title indicates that it’s in the city of Erfurt, and there’s a LIDL supermarket (a big chain) on the corner. You can search for all the LIDL locations here; I started to look up the addresses on Google Maps, but got bored: http://www.lidl.de/cps/rde/xchg/lidl_de/hs.xsl/6333.htm

  3. Roberta Says:
    January 15th, 2011 at 3:08 pm

    The video title is “Erfurter Kreisverkehr” which would imply it’s in the eastern city of Erfurt. Kreisverkehr means roundabout. Certainly doesn’t look very efficient, but perhaps on the Wohnurf principle it will confuse everyone equally and result in safe, albeit slow, travel

  4. Brian Says:
    January 15th, 2011 at 3:29 pm

    Actually, one of the commenters says it’s the corner of Blücherstraße and Dornheimstraße in Erfurt; it’s hard to tell from the Google Maps photo whether that’s true or not, but it could be: http://tinyurl.com/4unok3o

  5. Eric McClure Says:
    January 15th, 2011 at 3:29 pm

    It does look a little chaotic, so it would be interesting to see stats. Some vehicles go around the loop, others straight through. I kept cringing in expectation of collisions, but maybe that’s my NY conditioning.

  6. Daniel Says:
    January 15th, 2011 at 8:24 pm

    Noticed lots of these in Irish villages a few years ago. Often a tiny intersection would have no lights or signs (except maybe a roundabout warning sign) and a white dot eight feet across painted in the middle of the street. Perfect for a small intersection where turning is a little awkward: you carefully make the turn if there are other cars but can kind of ignore it if no one is around. But on a big one … I don’t know.

  7. Steven Says:
    January 15th, 2011 at 9:27 pm

    The real question is: how effective is this roundabout? What is the accident rate compared to similar intersections and the intersection prior to having this painted? Has it achieved its purpose (whatever that was)?

    If they put up a small painted curb - more like a circular speedbump - they probably would very quickly train drivers to go around it rather than allow them to shortcut it.

  8. chrismealy Says:
    January 15th, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    I can’t remember if it was in Wales or in England near Wales (it was three years ago) but I saw three foot wide dot roundabouts in nearly every village.

  9. bz2 Says:
    January 16th, 2011 at 4:04 am

    The “three foot wide dot” things are called “mini roundabouts” in the UK. You see them in continental Europe as well, but generally raised a bit to discourage people from going straight through. Note that these aren’t actually roundabouts, since they’re not signposted as such, they’re just a way of encouraging wider (and lower speed) left turns in residential areas.

  10. SteveL (a Bristol Traffic Team Member) Says:
    January 16th, 2011 at 5:22 am

    Mini-roundabouts in the UK are a way to fit roundabout like give-way rules into smaller areas. They have the same rules of priority (vehicles waiting to get on give way to vehicles on it), but in a smaller space.

    They can deadlock quite easily :
    http://bristolcars.blogspot.com/search/label/mini-roundabout

  11. Scott Says:
    January 16th, 2011 at 10:07 am

    I like the idea of a “circular speed bump” to keep people from driving straight across. I was thinking those collapsible plastic reflective “sticks” might also work.

  12. Scott Says:
    January 16th, 2011 at 10:08 am

    Even better might be some handsome potted trees. Functional and beautiful.

  13. David Says:
    January 16th, 2011 at 11:54 am

    In the French town of Gex there was (and might still be: I think I can see it on Google maps) a traffic circle consisting of a one meter diameter painted white disk. It was located at the intersection of two narrow streets. Not only did they cross at acute angle but steep grades were involved creating very poor visibility. Back then, traffic circles were still new in France. The only cars that carefully drove around that circle were driven by student drivers…

  14. Max Power Says:
    January 16th, 2011 at 6:37 pm

    I think the plastix flex-stick barriers or a circular speed bump would be better than a solid barrier, since you don’t want to obstruct vision.

    More importantly, what is the design of the road leading up to this intersection. People seem to be coming up to it at something like 90 kph. It looks like this design would benefit from some traffic calming on the road below this intersection.

  15. Josh R Says:
    January 16th, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    Looks like it works about as well as one would expect given that even in places where roundabouts are common, people tend to expect the visual cue of a raised center section, and without that only the drivers who are paying close attention will drive correctly.

    I can only imagine what would happen if you put one of those in a city in the US, or better yet a city that gets any kind of snowfall…

  16. Jan-Albert de Leur Says:
    January 17th, 2011 at 2:42 am

    There are some of these small roundabouts in the Netherlands: like these:

    http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=52.697931,5.218161&spn=0.000589,0.001206&t=k&z=20

    They work pretty fine.

  17. Michiel Says:
    January 17th, 2011 at 2:46 am

    If they add a small barrier or elevate the center a bit (e.g. with an extra level of asphalt) it will work better I think. A plus of this design is that long trucks with trailers can still pass the intersection.

  18. Biks Says:
    January 17th, 2011 at 9:26 am

    Roundabouts are a pretty new thing in Germany. They started to build a few in the 90s but only in the last ten years they became really popular. And, I’ve never seen one without any kind of barrier in the center. There are lots of regulations how to set up roads and signs by authorities (e.g., using the wrong font or type of arrow on a sign makes it invalid) so it’s pretty surprising that this is possible.

    I guess the problem is that the right-of-way rules are completely different if you don’t recognize the roundabout as such by the small blue sign (which is essential). In that case the red triangular sign means to let cars from the left and the right pass which also confuses as that street is much smaller.

  19. jvb Says:
    January 17th, 2011 at 4:46 pm

    According to the comments on YouTube they have now added a small island.

  20. Bossi Says:
    January 18th, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    Maryland has a roundabout formed by pavement markings, as well, located just across the Bay from Annapolis:

    http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=38.975997,-76.310525&spn=0.00152,0.002401&z=19

    You can catch a glimpse in Street View from along US 50.

  21. Bossi Says:
    January 18th, 2011 at 1:02 pm

    Ahh- I should add that the Maryland roundabout works great. While it serves a local population most of the year, in summer it gets traveled quite a fair bit by tourists headed for the beaches. Even then it fares quite well.

  22. Fritz Menzl Says:
    March 3rd, 2011 at 9:08 am

    The problem “on the continent”: In Germany and Austria too, they misunderstod the function of a the classic roundabout in UK.

    The UK roundabout is an “blown up” intersection and you drive and set your direction lights lik on other intersection.

    UK Left hand driving and right hand rule leads to an “organic” rule of giveing Way on roundabouts.

    UK Rules of the road know the passing side by side for two vehicles.

    This maneuver is unknown in German and Austrian Rule of the road.

    “The Kreisverkehr” is defined as a closed lane, and has tob be used as “mary go round” … aech abpoaching lane is defined as one intersection.

    The smaller the “Circle”, the harder to understand the rules, in Germany you allways have to follow the outer circle.

    Rundabouts are used to get speed out of the road, and not getting better synchronisation effect.

    .. misunderstanding the rounabut princuple, they built “Zebracrosings” on the roundabouts, an make bike lanes around the outer lane of the circles - a nogo in the UK.

    problem with micro roundabout all over the country.

  23. Michiel Says:
    March 7th, 2011 at 7:05 am

    I was wondering if people outside the NL are familiar with the turbo roundabout? It’s a multilane roundabout, but the different directions are separated. It can handle more traffic than a standard multilane roundabout.

    This is the largest one we have now, though most a just two lanes wide: http://maps.google.nl/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=nl&geocode=&q=51.968099,4.456133&aq=&sll=51.969019,4.456179&sspn=0.012519,0.033023&ie=UTF8&ll=51.968097,4.456158&spn=0.001565,0.004128&t=k&z=19

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