Stuff You Should Know - Roundabouts: The Problem Is You

Episode Date: September 18, 2018

They’re as American as Washington, DC yet most people in the US are terrified of them, hate them or both. What is it about traffic circles and roundabouts - which do nothing but safely, inexpensively and greenly direct traffic – that America can’t stand? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's nobody else because this is just pitiful, man.

Ghost Producers, left and right. Yep. Does it bum you out to be? I'm just gonna come out and admit it, yes, a little bit. It just makes the whole thing feel so workman-like and unimportant, you know? Yeah, with just you and me in here. It's, I mean, I'm happy to be here with you,

but you know, like, you know, it's just another thing that has to be done, record Josh and Chuck. It's not an event anymore. You know, there's no streamers like there used to be. Nobody cares. Well, luckily, the people who are listening care. Yes. And you really have to care

if you listened to an episode about roundabouts. You know, it's funny that you picked this one because just two days ago, I was driving home, went through a roundabout in the neighborhood of Lake Claire. Okay. And I was like, I love roundabouts. I love roundabouts. I wish Atlanta had more.

And Atlanta has a decent amount now, a lot of them newer, but I was just thinking about how much I loved roundabouts and then the next day, you said, let's do one on roundabouts. That's really interesting, man. Yeah. That is, I like that kind of, not syncretism. That's where Catholicism and indigenous religious beliefs

merge. I can't remember what it's called, but synchronicity, that's what it is. I like that kind of stuff. Yeah. So I'm right there with you, man. I love roundabouts too. And here's why.

To me, the second worst thing in the world after slow driving people in the fast lane, which by the way, you can see my Twitter feed Josh underscore underscore Clark for how I feel about slow drivers in the fast lane. I have a feeling, I know what you're about to say, but go ahead. The second worst thing that could possibly happen

to a human being is to sit there at a red light when there's no traffic coming. Okay, that's not what I thought you were gonna say. What did you think I was gonna say? I thought you were gonna say people who do not know how to manage a four-way stop sign stop. That is that third? That's, I'll put that third.

Yeah, you're right. I'll put that third man. Yeah, it is annoying sitting at a traffic light and it's even more annoying these days when you sit for an extra three seconds at every stop light because everyone is just finishing up that email. Oh man, yeah, that drives me crazy. I do, I'm so quick on the horn now.

I used to be very polite and just like a little, hey, you might not notice, tap, tap, but now when I see that head down, I just lay it on thick. I cannot tell you how proud I am of you right now. It's really like, I love it. And I usually scream some expletive attached to get off your phone.

Chuck, you are really coming along, buddy. I appreciate it. I'm trying to be more aggressive. I remember one time when we were driving together years and years ago and I was doing that. I was like shouting at people and stuff and you're like, really, we doing this? And I was like, yeah, isn't this normal?

And then now to hear that you're doing the same thing, I'm glad, I'm actually dialing it back. Apparently it's just kind of transferred over and made its way to you. I guess it's one of those things like anger in a car can either be created or destroyed. It just goes from person to person. I just got no patience for cell phones and driving, none.

Agreed. I'm over it. Well, that's another great thing. It's a great thing slash dangerous thing about introducing roundabouts. The idea that people are on their phones now more than ever while they're driving. Which again, if you're doing that, just stop. Just stop, it's so dangerous.

It's so reckless and irresponsible. Stop doing that, okay? Yeah. The problem is if you have people on phones and you introduce roundabouts, it's good and it's bad. It's a double-edged sword. It's good because if they have even a shred of survival instinct, they'll just drop their phone

right to the floorboard and grab the wheel with both hands in terror and panic because suddenly something's different and they have to really pay attention. That's one of the great things about a roundabout. It makes you pay attention, right? Oh, for sure. The problem is-

Ideally. Ideally. If you don't have that survival instinct and you don't drop your phone, then all of a sudden conditions suddenly change and you might find yourself in an accident with somebody else. Fortunately, roundabouts are designed

so that the accident will be minimal compared to one that you may have gotten into at a lighted intersection. For sure. However, there is a newer roundabout over in Emory Village. I don't know if you've seen that one yet. No. And that Emory Village is tough because it was, and it needed one

because it's, I don't know how many points. I feel like it's like one of those kind of weird five-way intersections. So those kinds of intersections are screaming for roundabouts. So they finally built one. It's very pretty, very functional. But just yesterday, I was driving through that one

thinking, I love roundabouts. And this dude just barreled through and did not yield, almost hit me. And I had a few choice words for him. But I'm like, roundabouts to me are so intuitive. Our article says they're counterintuitive. I disagree. I did too.

I think there's nothing more intuitive than not to just go barreling into a whirly go round circle of cars, which this guy did. Right. But what's ironic is if he had done that in, say, like the 1950s in the United States, he would have been in the right. You would have been in the wrong.

Which is just crazy to me when I read that. Do you want to start with some history about roundabouts? Because believe it or not, everybody, they have some history. Yeah, I mean, should we quickly say what they are? We're doing that thing again. You're right. So a roundabout is frequently called a traffic circle over in the UK.

And I think in other parts of Europe, they call it a gyratory, a one-way gyratory. Of course they do. And sometimes, previously, they were called rotaries. But what it is is it is instead of an intersection where, say, two or more roads cross. Rather than just having it be all right angles, you take that intersection and break it out

and put a circle in the middle. And all of a sudden, everybody going through that intersection has to go around the circle. Whether you want to go right, straight, left, or do U-turn, you've got a circle to circumnavigate. And there's a lot of reasons to do this. It slows people down. It makes them pay attention ideally.

It cuts down on congestion. And I think it's just much safer than a lighted intersection. So that's what a roundabout is. And a roundabout specifically also, Chuck, it's a specific kind of this traffic implementation. It has specific traits that we'll talk about that make it unique among traffic flow management things involving circles, which I think is the technical term.

Yeah, if you don't have them in your town, which is possible, we'll get to some USA stats at some point. But you can think of it as a tiny little circular express way with different exits all along the way. So as you approach one, if you want to go straight, if you want to just keep going straight, you have to enter the roundabout and go halfway around and then take your little exit to continue straight.

If you want to take a left, then you have to drive all the way around the circle and then get off taking a right, if that makes sense. Yeah, this article says it's a 270 degree turn. Yeah, that tracks, I think. I won't contest that. All right, so I think we can do history now. Man, that was a really great description of a roundabout,

man. Which the tiny circular expressway? Yeah. Yeah, we have 285, the perimeter here in Atlanta. Like a lot of cities have perimeters around the city. And this is just like a tiny little perimeter. Yeah, I guess that's a really good way to put it. Thanks.

So if we're going back to the beginning of roundabouts, most people would expect to find them in Europe because everybody's seeing national lampoon to European vacation with the very famous roundabout scene, right? Yeah. Actually, the first contours of what would become roundabouts are found in Washington, DC. In Europe's defense, they were designed by a European, Pierre

L'Enfant, who designed Washington, DC. He actually worked in some traffic circles, which is weird because there was no such thing as cars at the end of the 18th century. Oh, yeah. So it's very odd that he worked traffic circles in, but by God, he worked in traffic circles. Well, there were horses and buggies.

I imagine there was. I wonder if there was horse and buggy traffic, surely, right? I don't know. I'm not sure why he created these circles if it wasn't for traffic flow. Or if it wasn't just for aesthetics, it's possible it was for aesthetics, too. Although it was probably some weirdo Mason thing

that has to do with taking over the world in five centuries from now or something. I just think it's funny. I never really thought about, in a big city like Washington DC and the 1800s, sitting in a long line of horse and buggy traffic, like, for God's sakes, this guy in front of me, he's sitting there writing a letter with a fountain pen. Right.

Settle thee, Eustace. Settle thee. Get off your paper. Get off your paper. They'd have a quill is what it is. Yeah, would I say fountain pen? Yeah. No, you said ballpoint, I think.

No, it's a fountain. I'm pretty sure you said ballpoint. We'll rewind and find out one day. So DuPont Circle, the very famous and beautiful. And I really like that area of DC. Oh, yeah. DuPont Circle was, I believe, kind of the first big one in the United States, right?

Yes. And so people say, OK, all right, whatever. Pierre L'Enfant designed one in Washington DC. And that's it. That became the first one later on. But that doesn't really count because he wasn't really anticipating cars. So surely the first one really is in Europe, right?

And actually, no, that's not correct either. No, in 1905, Brian Eno, oh wait, not Brian Eno. His brother Bill. Yeah, Bill William Eno. In 1905, constructed, he was a businessman. And I don't think he constructed it, but he designed at least and implemented the very famous Columbus Circle in New York City,

which everyone, as far as automobiles go, consider the first traffic circle in the United States. Yes. So definitively, the first traffic circle, the first circular means of directing traffic around a circle circularly. Four cars. Right.

It finds its place in history in 1905 in New York City. And then the first one came in the UK at least, if not Europe, four years later, the British one-way gyratory in Letchworth Garden City. That's adorable. Letchworth Garden City, doesn't it make you feel like everybody dresses like undertakers there? And they have like claw fingers or something?

Letchworth. Welcome to Letchworth, yeah. So OK. So finally, Europe gets on board with the traffic circle in the early 20th century. Yeah, we should point out, though, that with those earlier roundabouts, they were not like we see today.

They didn't have this gradual sort of flowy motion. It was sort of a circle with these sharp right angles where you enter and exit, which is not flowy and intuitive. No, it's not. And there is this other thing, too. So a roundabout, so you can kind of interchange roundabout and traffic circle, and then something else called rotary.

It's all a circle where traffic is meant to go basically one way around it, and there's exits that are actually streets that form up the intersection, right? Yes. All of those things have those elements in common. The differences between rotaries and traffic circles and roundabouts is the rules, right?

So when traffic really started and people started building these, especially in America and in Europe, like in the 20s, 30s, 40s, when they really started to begin to take off, the rules were different. And they had it dead wrong. And it was a really simple traffic rule that they had going on that was screwing everything up. And what it was was that if you were in the traffic circle,

if somebody was waiting to get in the traffic circle, you yielded to the person coming into the circle. It's just so backwards, literally backwards. Totally backwards. They basically had a 50-50 chance of coming up with the right rule, and they chose the wrong way. And for decades, people got nightmare headaches from traffic circles, which back then were called rotaries.

Yeah, they had congestion. They had a lot of accidents. And this was in the 1930s through the mid-1950s. For close to 30 years, they were just like, well, we just can't figure out what's wrong here. There's just something wrong, and I can't put my finger on it. It's crazy. Finally, in England, in 1966, they went,

well, why don't we just reverse that and reverse the yield? That's literally all they had to do was you approach a traffic circle, you are yielding. Once you're in the traffic circle, you're fine. And that changed everything. Changed everything. All of a sudden, they used to have to call in cops to undo the gridlock that

would form in these traffic circles because of this. And they changed this flow of traffic pattern. The old one was called weave theory, where the people in the circle would stop, and the people coming in would weave into whatever lane they wanted to. It was just madness. And then they went to gap theory, which is you basically get in where

you fit in when you're coming into the circle. And everybody else in the circle is like, just get out of my way. I'm in the circle. I've got the right of way. And like you said, it changed everything. And all of a sudden, these delays and congestion dropped by half overnight.

Yeah, capacity increased by 10%. Crashes and delays decreased by 40%. And everyone went, wow, I can't believe it took us 30 years to think of this. Yes. And it took off big time in Britain after that. But because of the hullabaloo in the United States previously, it was a long time where the US

was like another 20 plus years where the US was still like, no, I'm not falling for this traffic circle thing again. Yeah, because they had built rotaries all over the place in the United States. But they worked so poorly because of that one stupid rule that by the time America gave up on it and the time Britain picked up on that rule change, America had said, we're done with these.

They were actually tearing out their old rotaries and putting in a traffic lighted intersection. Yeah, it marched down with their pitchforks and their torches and stop signs. And jackhammers destroyed these traffic circles and smashed stop signs through human bodies into the ground. It took, I think in 1988 in Ohio, California, lovely Ohio, there was a proposal for just a little three legged round

about. And everyone in Ohio is pretty laid back area. They were like, no. And so they didn't do it. And then two years later, finally, in Summerlin, Nevada, everybody, I'm sorry, Nevada, everybody got on board. And I think they had a couple of them in a planned community there.

Well, that's why I think it went through is because the community was being built from the ground up. So there was nobody to say no. Oh, so they moved in and they were there. Exactly. Right. So that was 1990, when America got its first actual roundabout. And again, it's because of that one stupid rule that

had just plagued everybody and driven them crazy, starting in the 30s up to about the 50s. And I saw one other reason why America didn't have roundabouts to Chuck. After World War II, when Eisenhower was over there, he saw a lot of gridlock in Paris, especially around the Place de Toile gyratory, the one that's around the L'Arc de Triomphe, which is huge.

It's like a 12-lane traffic circle. And he saw it was gridlocked all the time. But then he saw in Germany how fast the Autobahn had gotten the Nazis around. So America got interstates instead of traffic circles, because Eisenhower was basically the architect of America's interstate system. Oh, wow.

That was the other reason. I saw another thing. I was reading an article in, I think, I can't remember where it was, but it was basically like why there might have been priceonomics, why America has been so reticent. And there is another theory that this one, and this is a bit, I don't know, they call it controversial.

It's really not that big of a deal. But they say the roundabout is said to have flourished in Britain because it requires the British virtues of compromise and cooperation. They said the US is more aggressive and confrontational in culture and may explain why the roundabout has not been more widely adopted. Yeah, I mean, it is a group cooperation moving through a

roundabout, for sure. Whereas with a traffic light, the traffic light says stop. The traffic light says go. And all you have to do is know whether you're allowed to, whether you have the right of way or not. To punch it. Right. And I actually saw there's something called the UK

Roundabout Appreciation Society. Oh, that's lovely. And the guy who runs that says that traffic lights are fascist because they tell you to stop or go at any given point in time. Whereas a roundabout is much more group cooperative and people make their own decisions together as a collective. Yeah, that's why it's weird that in Ohio they would, there was an outcry in the 80s.

I guess they were just so new that they didn't get it. I think that's, and I think that's ultimately why people don't like roundabouts there. It's a new thing and everybody was raised with their traffic lights and they know what they're doing with traffic lights. And this is a big new scary thing and we're not in the mood to learn a new thing. So get that plan out of here and give us a stupid dumb traffic

light that we're going to have to sit at at one in the morning even though there's no one in sight and lose our minds. And then you finally get sick of it and decide to run the light and out of nowhere there's a cop behind you. Yeah. All right, let's take a break. OK. And we'll talk more about roundabouts right after this.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal?

No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy,

blowing on it, and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to, hey dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough,

or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you.

Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael.

And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen

so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. OK, so we should talk a little bit about how to design a roundabout. If you have a neighborhood that you have under your control, maybe you're going to want to put a roundabout in after you

listen to this episode. So if so, there are some things, some design principles that you want to follow. If you're the king of your neighborhood. Or the dictator. Sure, why not? Apparently, according to our article, there are five characteristics, one of which

I wouldn't even count as something you would need to, well, I'll just say that the big dumb, dumb one that should be assumed. I'm going to see if I can pick it out, OK? All right, I bet you will. First, you enter, the entry is controlled by a yield sign. OK, that's smart. But there are no signs or anything else

you have to do while inside the circle. Right, inside the circle. Except use your turn signal. Yeah, that's the one thing you're supposed to do. But everything else is like thunderdome, like no rules. Actually, that's not true. There's plenty of rules. Plenty of rules.

The second one is vehicles inside the roadway always have the right of way. That's a big one. Again, that's gap theory. You get in where you fit in if you're coming into the circle because everybody else in the circle already has the right of way. Did you make up, get in where you fit in?

I mean, I've heard it before, but as far as traffic circles go, yes. Oh, because that's a heck of a slogan. I think that is probably what's going to lead America to a deep and abiding love of roundabouts. I think so. We love things that rhyme. Yeah, we're a dumb culture.

Third, pedestrians can only cross the legs of the intersection. And you can only do it behind the yield sign. So does that make sense to people? Yeah, like you're not supposed to cross to the center island. No, that's, I have a little story about that, actually, the very famous Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France. That's the one I was talking about, the Place de Toile. Oh, OK, is that what it's called?

Yeah, that's the name of the traffic circle. Yeah, the very first time I went to Paris when I was, oh, I don't know, 22, 23 years old. My friend Brett and I were standing on the outside, looking at the Arc de Triomphe, and all of that traffic. And how many lanes is that, did you say? 12. OK, 12.

But there are no lines, right? It's just space for 12 cars. Think about that. Like, we don't even have 12 lane highways in the United States as big as our highways are. Yeah, so we're standing there, and we're looking across, and we're looking at the traffic. We're like, man, I don't know about this.

And then we see an elderly woman standing under the arch. And I was like, dude, if she can get over there, we can get over there. And we did the Frogger dash across the street, made it in one piece, and then realized that there's an underground walkway. I have the exact same story. Really?

Yep. Yep, when I was there with my family, my sister and I tried to, we made it across, but we're like, how is this legal? Why? Couldn't Paris have come up with a better way? Yeah. The answer is yes, and they did.

That's pretty funny. I bet we're not alone as Americans. I'm thinking that happens multiple times a day. Yeah. All right, so the fourth one is that parking is not allowed within the circular roadway. I think this is, I'm going to go ahead and say that. I think this is the dumb one.

Yeah, that's the one. Has anyone ever just stopped and been like, all right, I'm going to the store? Maybe. There's one they put a roundabout in at Lenox Mall. Do you know that? I don't think I've seen that one. It has backed up traffic for miles.

The traffic backs up to Tennessee now, because no one knows what to do there. Wow. They do stop in the middle. I don't think anybody's parked in it to go into the mall, but if they had, I wouldn't be all that surprised. Is it in the parking lot? Or part of the road?

It's in the parking lot, but it's part of the road. I'm saying it's not like a parking space on it or anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To get to and from the mall, on the mall property, there's a roundabout now. Gotcha, gotcha. And people do stop, though. Just as the guy barreled in without yielding,

I was also in a roundabout the other day where a lady jammed on the brakes when she saw a car approaching to get into the roundabout, and that mucks everything up, too. Right, that's the weave theory that screwed things up with rotaries. You do not stop when you're in the roundabout. And I think this is what really freaks people out,

is you realize that once you pull into that circle, you're expected to keep going. That's just the way it is. You're not supposed to stop. Technically, you're not supposed to change lanes, and you're supposed to go, go, go. And I think that's probably what unsettles a lot of people about the roundabout.

That and the fact that it's unfamiliar and new, and it's not what they learn to drive on starting at age 16, you know? Yeah, and if you get freaked out, like if you're, I mean, the ones in Atlanta are all pretty small neighborhood ones, just single lanes, and you're going super slow. But if you get in a large one and you get freaked out

and you don't get how to get over or get off the exit, just keep circling, calm down. Because you can keep driving in a circle just like European vacation, big bin parliament. Just keep hugging the circle until everybody leaves, and then you can do what you want. Yeah, it's two in the morning and everyone's gone. And then finally, the fifth characteristic

is all traffic must pass to the right of the central island in a counterclockwise direction. Yeah, that's a big one. And it depends on where you are and what traffic circle it is, but in the United States, traffic circles and roundabouts typically go counterclockwise, like you just said, right?

Yeah. There are some out there that go clockwise, depends again on where you are. The point is, is all traffic is going in the same direction around the circle. I think there's a couple out there that of course are going to undermine what I said. There's always somebody who's going to,

but traffic circles typically all flow in the same direction. Yes, so what we're talking about is sort of the standard. There are many different kinds we'll go over here in a sec, but the standard one is just a circle around a central island. Most of the times there's something lovely in that island. Right. A planting or a statue or something.

Which is another reason why people like roundabouts more. Sure, yeah, stop signs never planted or in the middle of a fountain. No, there's just some person wandering there in the middle of the intersection, you know? Yeah, and someone has put a sticker over the stop sign that says Trump or logging or animal abuse or whatever. Right.

Oh, I get it now. Stop whatever. Yeah, I gotcha. Have you never understood that? No, I'm kidding. Okay. I think I do remember it taking me longer than it should have though

and this is the first time I've ever really admitted it. Yeah, and yield signs don't, you wouldn't be prone to yield to- Yield to logging. Everyone yield to logging. Well, the logging industry, they might put those up. That would never take off though, because it doesn't rhyme.

Oh, you're right. So they have many roundabouts that are, 40, 50 feet in diameter. And then what they call rural roundabouts, which are very large, and the reason they're largest, because it's rural and you can go a little faster. That's the thing.

Like the smaller the radius of the roundabout, the slower you have to go around it, which is one reason why in Atlanta, there's so many of those ones just in the middle of the neighborhood. Rather than a speed bump, there's nice little lovely fountain, just smack dab in the middle of the road,

or maybe it's a tree or something like that. And it's a barrier, an impediment, that you're being forced to go around, so you can't go very fast, right? Yeah. With a traffic circle, that is one of the main goals of any traffic circles, to slow you down and to direct you safely

to where you're going at a slightly slower rate of speed. But depending on the radius of the circle, you can go a lot faster on the bigger ones. And there's some I saw that are up to like 100 meters across or 300 feet, which is basically like a football field. That's an enormous traffic circle. On something like that, you can just haul. Hull butt?

I guess. I live near Memorial Drive at a very dangerous intersection, where Memorial Drive kind of in the neighborhoods where I live is dangerous anyway, because it is a 35 mile an hour street, supposedly, that's three lanes, that people go about 60 on. Yeah, and there's a lot of hills and like blind.

A lot of blind hills. Blind streets, side streets or whatever. Yeah, and it's one of those that has the reversible, like it has a sign above that either has a green arrow or a red X for that center lane. So depending on the time of day. Or the lane's mood. Yeah, or the lane's mood, it will switch.

And we probably have eight to 10 serious, serious accidents at the intersection near my house a year, really scary ones. And so they're not doing roundabouts, I wish they would, but they are doing what's called a road diet, have you ever heard of that? No. That's when you actually lessen the,

you shrink, not in size, but you, what's the word I'm looking for? I don't know. They're basically shrinking the travel lanes to make it safer. So that middle lane is going to be a turn lane now, and not a reversible traffic lane. So there will only be one lane of traffic

going each way with the turn lane, with the idea that that is less confusing, it slows things down supposedly, and gets people that are turning out of the way. Yeah, a reversible lane is just a bad idea. Especially on Memorial, it's not a 35 mile an hour road. No, Atlanta has two very notable in that area, Memorial Drive and DeKalb Avenue,

that are both, people drive way too fast on these roads, and they're both have these reversible lanes. So I wish they would do a big roundabout right near my house, but they'd never go for that. Yeah, I actually just barely escaped death once on DeKalb Avenue, because I hadn't noticed that the lane was reversible, and I took a left in front of a guy

in the reversible lane next to me, and just, he just stopped just in time. I had no idea that he was there, because I didn't realize the lane was reversible. Yeah. It was, man, even just thinking about it now, I get the shivers. See the chicken skin.

They're like quills. All right, so there are more types of, than just the regular roundabout, and they are as follows. To me, I couldn't tell the difference in the dog bone and the dumbbell. I got this. Really? Because they look just the same to me.

Did they? You looked them up and they look the same, huh? I thought so. Okay, but that just may be the internet messing with me. Could be. So like a dog bone one is two traffic circles, but it's one contiguous road going around both of them and connecting the two, okay?

So it's like you go around one circle, and then you go on a little bit of a straightaway, and then suddenly you're in the next circle, and you go around that circle, and you're back onto the other side of the straightaway, and then you're back onto the other circle, right? That's a dog bone one. Just imagine what a dog bone looks like.

Yeah, from the sky. A dumbbell, sure. A dumbbell traffic circle is a traffic circle and another traffic circle, and they're two distinct ones, and they're connected in the middle by a roadway, like a dumbbell. So it's not one contiguous road, even though it kind of is,

it's much more of like a right turn when you get into one circle or out of one circle to get to that main road. How about this, everybody? Go look up a dog bone traffic circle and a dumbbell traffic circle, and you'll say, okay. The way that this article put it is the dog bone traffic circle,

it looks like you took a big traffic circle and pinched it in the middle, and then the two circles form on the outer edge, and it's kind of flattened in the middle of the two. I think that's a pretty good description. Again, just go look up pictures of them. Yeah, if you're listening, I'll pull your car over, though. Oh, good point.

Put your phone down. Yeah. The hamburger roundabout is just like a regular roundabout, but the main road there crosses the center island. So if you want to go straight, you can just go straight. If you accidentally, let's say, get in the roundabout, you can still exit like you were going straight on that main road, though.

So you have two options, basically. Yeah. If you want to go straight. And from what I saw, if you're that road, the hamburger line road that goes straight through the circle is the one with the right of way, and everybody else getting into the circle and going around the circle has to yield to that road

going right through. It seems okay. It seems a little much like you've taken roundabout design too far if you've made a hamburger. This is my opinion. Yeah, agreed. So there's a flower one too, Chuck, which is pretty. Yeah, it doesn't mean the flowers in the center circle,

although they are often there. But this is where you have a regular traditional roundabout. But the right hand turns are, there's another little slip road outside the roundabout. It's called a slip lane. And I think that just, I don't know, maybe that makes it a little easier. Yeah, so if you're actually entering the traffic circle,

that means you're either going straight turning left or making a U turn. If you're doing right turns, you're just directed right, you don't ever make it quite to the traffic circle. It's just like here, take your right, go over there. And I mean, at the very least, it would cut down on congestion. And probably it would,

because there's fewer people entering the traffic circle, it would just cut down on accidents altogether. Yeah. And then another one's turbo, a turbo roundabout, which is basically like a flower roundabout. But the thing is it's multiple lanes, but you have to choose what lane you wanna be in, depending on what you wanna do.

If you wanna take a right turn, you get in the far right lane. If you wanna go straight, you have to get in the middle lane. If you wanna turn left, you get in the left lane. And depending on what you're doing, it will direct you around the traffic circle to where you wanna go.

But the reason you have to choose a lane is because once you're in it, you can't move. Like there may be a curb or there's some flowers or something like that. And these are supposedly way safer. I saw something like 50% fewer accidents. Oh yeah? Yeah, they allow for more cars.

They make you think about what you're doing a lot more, so you tend to go into them a little slower, even though it's called the turbo roundabout. And the reason why there's fewer accidents is there are fewer conflict points, right? Yes. Did we talk about conflict points yet? No, not yet.

So if you enter an intersection, a four-way intersection with a traffic light, there's actually 32 of what are called conflict points. And they're basically 32 places that you could possibly get into an accident. And some of them can be really bad. Like a T-bone, right? Where you turn left in front of an oncoming car

and it hits you right in the middle. Man, those are bad. They are bad. I got turned over once, hanging upside down in my car. Oh, good Lord. Getting T-bone, yeah, seat belts, man. And then you could also get a head-on collision. Those are particularly bad too.

Those don't exist in traffic circles. It's not possible for you to get T-boned or to get into a head-on collision in a traffic circle, right? There's actually only eight conflict points in a traffic circle rather than 32. So that automatically means there's gonna be fewer accidents.

And then with a turbo traffic circle, they have fewer conflict points. I didn't see where. But I think because of them and the flower ones that they direct right-hand turns outside of the circle, it probably cuts it by half maybe, even the number of conflict points. Right, and we're talking about cars here.

Pedestrians and cyclists also figure in. And like we said before, pedestrians, they usually have a crosswalk on the legs behind those yield signs. And some kind of, they call it a landscaping buffer, something sort of there to intuitively keep you out of that intersection and directed toward where you should cross.

If you're a cyclist, you have a choice. You can either get off your bike and then act like you're just a walking pedestrian and go that way. Or you can get in that traffic circle and they should treat you like a car. And they suggest that you ride kind of in the middle of it so cars aren't incentivized to try and go around you.

Yeah, ride in the middle of the lane. Yeah, yeah, because a car going around a cyclist in a traffic circle, that's probably a recipe for accident. For sure, dude. And then did you say that pedestrians are actually the ones in a traffic circle who have the right of way above everybody else? No, I didn't say the right of way,

but pedestrians always have the right of way, or should have the right of way on roads in America, but, I mean, not like expressways, obviously, but you know, be smart. You still just don't go like a running through there saying, I've got the right of way. Right, if you hit me, you're in trouble. It's your fault.

You wanna take another break? Let's do. MUSIC On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper,

because you'll wanna be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself,

what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS,

because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so, my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one.

Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, dude, so there are some real benefits to Roundabout. One of the things we already talked about is that they're safer. Just by definition, they have fewer conflict points. So with fewer places that you possibly can get into an accident, there's going to be fewer accidents. And I've seen a lot of different statistics.

There's some old statistics. There was a study from 2000 that looked at 24 new roundabouts in the US and found that there was a 76% decrease in crashes that resulted in injuries, and a 90% decrease in crashes that were fatal or incapacitating. And then there was about a 40% reduction in crashes overall.

Yeah, those are big numbers. That's enormous. And they seem to be held up. Like, I've seen different studies that have slightly different numbers, but they're all definitely in that same ballpark. And they all amount to the fact that traffic circles are just way, way safer than intersections with lights.

Just ridiculously safer. Again, it's impossible to get into a head-on collision, and it's impossible to get T-bone. And those are the two most dangerous kind of accidents you can get into. Yeah, they're also cheaper over time. To build around about, it costs about the same, roughly, depending on the size, obviously, as a regular traffic

lighted intersection or traffic lit. But these traffic lights over time cost a lot more to maintain, about $5,000 to $10,000 a year in maintenance over their life of 15 to 20 years. I would think that's how much a traffic light cost, and then that was it. That's an enormous amount of money. Yeah, well, these are government money, though.

I wonder if that's for all the lights in an intersection. That can't be per light, right? I don't know, man. Yeah, I don't know. Who knows? But yeah, that's a lot. And that's the thing. With traffic circles, you don't have lights.

You got four yield signs on the outside legs, and everything else is basically just paying somebody to keep the grass cut and the flowers watered in the center island. Maybe some paint on the road. And eventually, they said about 25 years, you might need to do some reconstruction on the roundabout from dummies hopping the curb and stuff like that over time.

I couldn't think of why. I'm like, you're really wearing your roundabout out if it only lasts 25 years. But yes, of course, people do hit the curb. Especially, apparently, 18-wheeler drivers are not particularly big fans of roundabouts, because if the radius is really tight, they just can't navigate it.

So some roundabout designs have included an apron, which is basically like a curved curb that you're not supposed to drive on. But if you're an 18-wheeler, it's just a little extra bit of room that you can get through the traffic circle with. Yeah. What else is there? Oh, I know another benefit.

They're green. I love this one. They are green, man, and I hadn't thought about it. But when you stop at an intersection, come to a complete stop, especially if you're sitting there idling at a stupid red light, you're just sitting there burning gas. And then you burn a lot of gas to go from a complete standstill

up to accelerate to the normal speed again, too. You don't have that in a traffic circle, or you have a lot less of it, because people can just go right into the circle if they're getting in where they're fitting in America. Yeah. Yeah, there are some numbers around that. It reduces delays, depending on the roundabout,

anywhere from 13% to 90%. And this improved flow reduces fuel consumption and emissions by about 30% or more. Yeah, I saw 28% less gas used from a study back in 2002. Again, an old study, but I didn't see anything newer than that. Should we talk about some tips? Yes, this is the public service segment of this episode, Chuck, and I really

feel like we can do some real good here. Yeah, I mean, we've covered some of these. But if you don't know about how to navigate around about it, you approach it. As you approach it, take a deep breath, relax. You can do this. It's no big deal. And you're going to see that diamond-shaped,

or it's actually not diamond-shaped. It's upside down triangle, right? It's two triangles put bottom to bottom, butt to butt, backside to backside. Are they? They're not diamond-shaped, are they? Yeah, yeah, it's like a triangle. You're just triangles.

No, these aren't yield signs. This is a roundabout sign. Oh, like a beware of approaching a roundabout? Yeah, it's basically like a quick graphic that's basically a rough map of the roundabout you're dealing with. Show the number of legs, the suggested speed, all that. Gotcha, gotcha. So take a look at that so you know what you're

about to go into. Our article is so dumb, it says it has a suggested speed, usually around 20 or 30 miles per hour. Don't just default to that. Look at the suggested speed if there is one, or just slow down. It's pretty intuitive of how fast people are going. I feel so bad for pumps right now. For what?

Pumps, Clint Pumphrey. Oh, yeah. He wrote this one, I thought it was pretty good. No, it is good, but there's a couple of things he should clean up. Yeah, the counter intuitive thing, we definitely disagreed with that. All right, so slow down to that speed.

Look for people, look for bikes in the crosswalks. And again, if there's somebody in that crosswalk, you stop because they got the right away. Yeah, so you yield to them, but if it's clear, you go to that yield sign, you look left to see if anyone's coming, and if no one's coming, you ease into that traffic circle. Ideally, you don't have to stop at all,

but if there's cars there, of course you do. But if not, you just keep that flow going and go around that circle as many times as you need to feel comfortable exiting the circle. Right, and when you're in there, don't stop. No. Do not stop while you're in the traffic circle. Again, if you're freaked out,

just drive around in the circle and hum to yourself. Give yourself a little mini lobotomy, right? And then when you're comfortable, do your thing. But remember, you still need to use your signals, right? So if you're taking a right at that first leg, it's gonna be pretty quick and painless. You just stay in the right lane and you go around and you turn your right signal on

and make a right hand turn. Yes. It gets a little more complicated if you're going straight, but really, it's not. Because if you stop and think about it, all you're doing is swerving around an island and going back into the path that you were on before. Yeah, then there are multiple lane roundabouts.

I don't think I've ever been in one of those. Oh, yeah. I don't think I have. I mean, it's a little more complex, but it's really not. And the key to those are you just don't change lanes. You pick the lane you need to be in and once you're in it, you don't change lanes. Right.

And it's just two lanes going in the same direction together. So if you're gonna turn left, you already wanna be in the left lane of the two lanes and you're going to go into the inner lane of the traffic circle, right? Yeah. And then when you take that left turn, what you're really doing as far as the circle is concerned

is taking a right, but let's not confuse things further. When you take that left turn or make that left onto that left leg, you're staying in that lane. There's gonna be a lane for you to go into that whole time. So you just stay in your lane and go to where you wanna go and everything is totally fine. It's not that much more complicated for a two lane one.

Yeah, not really. Just be careful with all this stuff. Don't go barreling in there. If you're not, even if you do feel comfortable with your own self, not everyone else is. Yeah, that's a big one to remember. So just remember, even though you've slowing down maybe more than you want to,

it's still better than stopping in a stoplight. Yeah, and I have to say also, it would not hurt to go watch a two minute video on how to navigate around about. Like there's, it's not hard, but it's a lot easier to see it with like some video than it is to hear somebody describing it, you know? Yeah, for sure.

So we gotta talk about a couple of like roundabout things in pop culture, okay? Yeah, let's do it. We already talked about European vacation. Right, but there's actually a dude who holds a record for the, I guess the longest time driven on a single roundabout. Oh, really?

Yeah, a guy named Oren Sands from Carmel, Indiana, which as far as I can tell, Carmel, Indiana has 60 roundabouts, which is more than any other city in the United States. Yeah, how many did you say? 60. Carmel dude now has 105. Wow, man, they've gone bonkers.

With a hundred, that was a July of last year and they have 140 proposed. Wow. The roundabout capital of the United States. Well, they also have, I mean, that's appropriate because they have the roundabout king, Oren Sands, who on October 3rd, 2015 drove his 1987 Volkswagen Cabriolet around a dog bone roundabout in Carmel

for three hours, 34 minutes and 33.24 seconds, which set a record only because it must've been the first time anybody's ever done that. Wow. Was he just one of those guys that's not comfortable so he just kept going or was he out to set a record? He out to set a record. He was out to set a record, but it all started

because he got distracted once and ended up having to go around a dog bone roundabout and decided, you know what, I'm gonna just set a record here. So he did. He's that kind of guy in that kind of town. I got some stats for you. As far as the United States go, American drivers on average pass through 1118 intersections

before you encounter a roundabout. And in France, you were more than 25 times more likely to go through a roundabout than the States. Also very big in Germany, obviously Great Britain, Spain, Australia, and in fact, Australia, I think is second to France. You go through one roundabout every 65 intersections. Yeah, I saw that Australia is roundabout crazy too.

And as far as the US goes, the state of Florida has the most, although the state of Maryland has the highest concentration of roundabouts. So in Maryland, I believe it's, you're likely to pass through one once every 363. And South Dakota is the least likely state, number 50. Number 50, and I guess, I mean, there's no one in South Dakota,

you don't need roundabouts, it makes sense. But it's on average once every 22,806 intersections, which I think means there's only one roundabout. I think so, it's right in the middle of a wagon trail. Yeah, and we gotta talk about Swindon. Yes, we do. So Swindon has something that's actually the actual name of it is the Magic Roundabout.

It was originally called County Islands Ring Junction, but it's so nuts that they renamed it Magic Roundabout. And that was a nod to a kid's show that was very popular in Europe in the 60s and 70s. Yeah, Swindon, obviously in England, if you're a fan of the original BBC office, then you know about Swindon. It takes a lot of guff on that show.

It's sort of a running joke. Okay. So just setting the stage. Is that where the British office was set? No, but they take on very early in the show. They take on workers from the Swindon branch that had closed. And I don't know what the inside joke is,

but there are just a lot of little barbs kind of thrown at Swindon throughout the show. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah, who knows? I've never really watched the British version. Man, it's so good. The American version's pretty great too, isn't it? They're both great.

It's one of those rare cases where they just nailed it in both countries. Nice. So in Swindon, Swindon's big claim to fame is that they have that magic roundabout. So get this. The magic roundabout is five clockwise roundabouts. Many roundabouts.

That form a circle outside an internal big roundabout that goes counterclockwise. Well, no, inside an external, wouldn't it be? They're contained within the outer one. Oh, okay. I thought it was that they were around the outside of an inner one. So there's an outer one that goes,

that the five are inside. That makes way more sense. Yeah, like just go to Wired.com and there's an article called The Brilliant Sorcery of England's Seven Circle Magic. And they have a little moving graphic of how this thing works. And it will, as an American,

and maybe even as a European, it will break your brain. As a human being. Yeah, when you look at this thing, when it shows how everything works in motion with different color arrows going around, you're just like, it looks like chaos, but apparently it works. I wouldn't want to, I mean,

you gotta really know what you're doing, but if you do know what you're doing, it works. I saw over a 25 year period. Again, and so what I'm seeing here is that there are five of these roundabouts all connected. There's an anti-clockwise roundabout and an outer clockwise roundabout. So it's technically seven roundabouts,

all forming one giant circle. That's what I'm seeing. But despite all this, in 25 years, they've only had 14 serious accidents and about a hundred lesser accidents in 25 years. Yeah, and I think a lot of those involved bicyclists. And now they have solved that, they think, because there is now a cycle lane

on the outside of the whole thing with something called a pelican crossing. I don't know what that is, do you? Yes, I looked it up. I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. It's called a pedestrian light-controlled crossing. It's kind of like a terrible acronym. But it's, you know, when you wanna cross,

rather than wait for the light to change, you can press the button and the light comes on and everybody has to stop. That's a pelican crossing. No, okay, so they think that solves what little problem they had with accidents. Yeah, it's pretty impressive, man. I think one of the other reasons

is there's not more accidents as people who don't know what they're doing, just stay out. Yeah. You know? For sure. Just rent a helicopter. Why not?

You got anything else? I got nothing else. I like this one. This is, to me, is one of my favorite kind of stuff you should know, episodes. Civil engineering ones, traffic ones, what? Nah, just sorta like ballpoint pens. Like a very rudimentary thing

that's actually brilliant in its simplicity and has a unique history. I love this stuff. Yep. Well, if you wanna know more about traffic circles and roundabouts, go watch some videos. They're actually kind of mesmerizing. And you will learn to be a better driver as a result.

And maybe none of us will ever have to wait at a red light again, ever. And since I said that, it's time for Listener Mail. Oh, no, it's not. Oh, what is the time for then? Well, I didn't get one. So, when occasionally that happens, not to say I didn't get any email,

I just did not prepare one. I see, I see. But sometimes when that happens, we will do this. We will encourage the sharing of stuff you should know. Oh, yeah. Tell some friends. Tell one person you know. Tell two.

Tell two people that you know. How much you love the show. If you have not left a rating or a review on iTunes that helps us out, we encourage you to do that. Yeah, and anywhere you can leave a rating or a review for us would be great. Absolutely. So, we don't do this much, but we appreciate the support.

And we encourage you to help spread the good word of this little show that's been around forever. Oh, yeah. And we should say also to Chuck, another way to spread the word is to go to our merch store at tpublic.com slash stuff you should know. And you could buy shirts that are pretty straightforward stuff you should know stuff and then some really arcane ones

that are basically like one-off joke references that sometimes even me and Chuck are like, wait, what does this mean? But they're good. Like the Louis the Child Skeptic shirt, which I love. Sure, we got the great band name shirts. We got Wayback Machine shirts. Yeah, don't yuck someone's yum.

Yeah, we have the standard stuff you should know logo and all kinds of shirts and coffee mugs and that we're finally doing merch right. And have a good little story going. Yeah, so there's a lot of ways to show your love for us. But the biggest way of all is to just say hi once in a while and say, hey, dudes, I like to hear what you guys have to do. That makes us feel like a million bucks.

And you can do that by going to our website, stuffyoushouldknow.com, and finding all of our social links there. And you can also drop us a line by email at stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.