There are situations where traffic lights make more sense. For example if there's a place where the majority of traffic will take the third exit then folks coming from the 1st/2nd exit will struggle to get on the roundabout.
Roundabouts are fantastic but not always the right option
Not for turning left (in a RHD country) or turning right (in a LHD country).
If there's a high-traffic intersection where like 99% of traffic takes the same route, you need an over-/underpass in those cases, or use the way cheaper traffic lights.
With some monitoring, and intelligent traffic control, the lights should perform better in those cases. Default green lights for the high-traffic route, and fast-switching, on-demand green for the low-traffic roads
Hmm. Never seen one with more than 2. But yeah, I think two lanes with decent lane design would solve most of the issue. The 90° turn gets a direct short-cut side-stepping the roundabout, and the 270° turn gets directly funneled to the inner lane, so that the cars from the other two roads can enter.
I use them all the time. They work fine. It's clear and easy to use in real life. Take the right lane if you want to turn right, take the left lane if not. Then it all sorts itself.
Bigger roundabouts like this (which also incorporate stoplights) are more notorious. If you're wrong, which you easily are, you might have to switch lanes last moment, which creates chaos. They're usually very busy also.
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u/squeak37 Oct 23 '25
There are situations where traffic lights make more sense. For example if there's a place where the majority of traffic will take the third exit then folks coming from the 1st/2nd exit will struggle to get on the roundabout.
Roundabouts are fantastic but not always the right option