The transition

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Here is the new roundabout going in. Also a trike I just made electric.

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Rotary is a NY/NJ/New England thing. In NJ, some have signs in the middle that say "ROTARY". In MA, they seem to be the universal solution for intersections. Whenever a busy intersection gets redesigned here, they put a rotary in its place.
 
stompandgo said:
Rotary is a NY/NJ/New England thing. In NJ, some have signs in the middle that say "ROTARY". In MA, they seem to be the universal solution for intersections. Whenever a busy intersection gets redesigned here, they put a rotary in its place.
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I seem to recall them in Worcester MA in the 1950s.

Worcester was unusual in that the neighborhoods were pockets between steep hills and lakes. Since the 17th Century, settlers couldn't choose their neighbors. We had a retired Anglo on one side, a French couple on the other, a young French family across the street, a young Irish family beside them, and a young Italian family around the corner. There were Swedes and Native Americans everywhere. I studied the way they looked and talked but couldn't tell the difference.

One American in 40,000 was a millionaire, and such a family lived behind us. I'd slip between the hedge and the sawgrass bush to swing on their swing. Any other swing had a hole that kids' feet had scraped, but they were so rich that they had filled the hole with concrete. We didn't even have a swing! They were too snobby to run out and tell me to get out of their yard.

My father kept his 15-year-old woody presentable by varnishing the sides and repainting the fabric top. In 1955 we got a Ford Fairlane Victoria with 120 horsepower. That's when I realized that I was a snob. I didn't want neighbors to know, but somehow they found out and quit speaking to me. They thought they were better than me because I was a snob and they weren't.
 
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I remember back in the 1950's when NJ. removed all the traffic circles due to the high accident rate. Now, they are being built again. I guess the traffic engineers are too young to remember that.

It must be calling them roundabouts, instead of circles, makes them safer.
 
Actually the rules for traffic circles back in ancient times was quite different and that's why there were higher accident rates.

The biggest thing was those antediluvian traffic circles had the rule that cars entering the circle had right-of-way, while the modern equivalent gave priority to vehicles already in the circle.
 
Mr. Coffee said:
Actually the rules for traffic circles back in ancient times was quite different and that's why there were higher accident rates.

The biggest thing was those antediluvian traffic circles had the rule that cars entering the circle had right-of-way, while the modern equivalent gave priority to vehicles already in the circle.
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Couldn't they have just changed the laws instead of removing the circles?
 
They did remove them in NJ. Then they made the law that you could not make a right after stopping at a red light. That is as dumb as the laws that you cannot self-serve gas in MA and OR. Only a trained professional can pump gas.
 
PedalUma said:
They did remove them in NJ. Then they made the law that you could not make a right after stopping at a red light. That is as dumb as the laws that you cannot self-serve gas in MA and OR. Only a trained professional can pump gas.
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You can't pump your own gas in NJ either.
 
Circles are for limited use where 4 or 5 roads come together. I suppose close your eyes and pedal like an SOB at the entrance on a bike.
 
6zfshdb said:
Couldn't they have just changed the laws instead of removing the circles?
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They could have, but the change in the laws seemed to have happened decades after the traffic circles were removed.

I'd also keep in mind that auto safety and the statistical analysis of traffic accidents was in its infancy back in those days and both the reliability of the data collected and their analysis of it was likely pretty deeply flawed.
 
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