Best strategy for getting out of the parking lot?

99er said:

I dunno....I'll never understand why people have a hard time with them.

Kind of like I don't understand why people on a divided highway crawl to a near stop when the accident is on the other side of the highway.

Look, kids! Big Ben. Parliament. This is amazing, I cannot get left!

I used to live on a town square that was like a roundabout except all 4 roads had a stop sign before you entered. It was big and I didn't mind it. Even with cars backing in and out of it from the corners of the square it was no problem. Near my mom's house a few years ago a roundabout was put in on a state route intersection. It's small and kind of tight and lots of tall landscaping was put in the middle. I hate it.

Good point Paisley. Why do the designers feel the need to block your vision by planting tall crap in the middle of the circle?

I have the same complaint with parking lots. Let’s plant trees and bushes at the entrance/exit so people can’t see. I love that idea!

Shades, one of the worst is Kroger on Perkins Ave., Attempting to exit at the non-stop light driveway is an adventure. Trying to look east the view is blocked by some tall growing veragated grass that doesn't need to be there or at least not that tall.

It isn't just all the crap in the middle but that on top of how tight the circle is. The town square had a statue in the center but the circle was huge so not having clear line of sight didn't matter as much but in general yeah there's too much of the wrong stuff planted in so many places anymore and then not kept properly trimmed to not obstruct views.

Paisley at least they didn’t decide to put worlds tallest free standing Corinthian Column in the middle of the roundabound like St.Louis did in 1871. It is still there.

Shades said:

Good point Paisley. Why do the designers feel the need to block your vision by planting tall crap in the middle of the circle?

I have the same complaint with parking lots. Let’s plant trees and bushes at the entrance/exit so people can’t see. I love that idea!

It's a feature, not a bug.

The island may provide a visual barrier, to alert approaching drivers to the presence of the roundabout, and to encourage drivers to focus on the traffic in the path of the circle. A visual barrier significantly reduces the accident rate. Otherwise, vehicles anywhere in or near the circle can cause those entering to stop and wait for them to pass, even if they are opposite, which unnecessarily reduces traffic flow.

When approaching a roundabout, you need only focus on traffic already there and traveling toward your entrance, which is the traffic immediately to your left. Anything else is an unnecessary and dangerous distraction.

Interesting. Maybe you are just unlucky that you are always behind the guy entering the roundabout who stops to admire the artwork.

They might be able to fit a wild mouse on one of the larger roundabounds.

Or maybe they can repurpose that one Dinosaur 😉

djDaemon said:

The island may provide a visual barrier, to alert approaching drivers to the presence of the roundabout, and to encourage drivers to focus on the traffic in the path of the circle. A visual barrier significantly reduces the accident rate. Otherwise, vehicles anywhere in or near the circle can cause those entering to stop and wait for them to pass, even if they are opposite, which unnecessarily reduces traffic flow.

When approaching a roundabout, you need only focus on traffic already there and traveling toward your entrance, which is the traffic immediately to your left. Anything else is an unnecessary and dangerous distraction.

I thought about this some more. I am curious as to what type of accidents the non-barrier circles lead to. Is it that people do not realize that there is a circle so they attempt to drive straight through it? Or do they see on-coming traffic and stop, thus causing the person behind them to rear end them?

This.

So the big red arrow signs were not enough of a warning that there was a circle?

Maybe a circle sign would help. :)

Driver was in a hurry to get to Pabianice, every second counts.

Parking lot is an absolute clusterf*** right now. At this rate I'll be lucky to be out of the parking lot before midnight. I'm hearing reports of an accident on the causeway. That seems to be a normal occurrence these days.

What is going on on the causeway that so many accidents keep happening. There is supposedly one according to Waze on my way in but it was gone by the time I got there. If people are that impatient and unconscious of drivers I think that may be another reason to look at getting that giant parking structure and monorail or bus system put in. Just to minimize those accidents.

Adding those wouldn't keep accidents from happening because you are still going to have a large amount of traffic exiting at the same time. These accidents are typically people who don't know how to merge or people who don't want others to merge in front of them. It's just the nature of the game for the amount of cars trying to leave one place all at the same moment.

In the parking lot last night, alot of drivers were just plain rude and didn't give a crap about anyone else around them. I saw alot of cars just cut off other cars right in front of them, people trying to squeeze into a very tight space, and just pulling out right in front of another car regardless if they were going to be let in by another car. They were just being very aggressive. The way people were in the parking lot last night, I'm not surprised there's alot of accidents.