On! Wisconsin

I live in Wisconsin..very familiar with location you are talking about...it's a nightmare even on a good day.

State of Wisconsin is on a building craze with roundabouts...someone in state government has convinced enough people that roundabouts are actually safer than intersections controlled by stop lights ...seriously !

I have been to one town in Wisconsin (Mt. Horeb) that has at least 5 roundabouts pretty much back to back to back...small town makes absolutely no sense.

Roundabouts = accident waiting to happen !

Sedona AZ might have you beat.

I would say then that this clearly demonstrates that drivers in Mexico must be superior drivers.

Roundabouts are everywhere and no mayhem!!!

I also live in Wisconsin and agree Mt. horeb is ridiculous. However the location in question here use of round-abouts is fine, as long as drivers actually realize how to drive in one.

When entering a round-about you only Yield(not stop)unless there is a car in the round-about on your left coming fast. So pulling into a round-about you only have to look left while rolling to the stop/yield, if room hit the gas.

Once in the round about you only have to watch the 1 or two incoming lanes on your right for morons and keep moving forward, exit when necessary.

On my daily route (60miles one way) the round-about intersections(12 in total) have gained me 5MPG over last year and shaved 10-15minutes off my drive. I have only seen a few close accident ALL were drivers doing something stupid(two drivers were going the wrong way).

Roundabouts are quite common in Europe and people seem to use them without significant problems. But for some reason, many (most) North American drivers panic when we encounter one. And when we are outide our comfort zone, even good drivers become a threat to safety!

I followed a semi through there the other day and his rear trailer duals were up on the curb at each roundabout. There are also some new ones on the north side of Baraboo on hwy 12 and there is a couple of new ones at county M and county MM by Oregon.

My theory on the roundabouts is it saves them the cost of placing and maintaining stoplights and stop signs.

My advice to anyone entering roundabout with a semi tractor-trailer rig is to give them plenty of room. Invariably they end up using both lanes...not their fault...most roundabouts I've had mispleasure of using are designed way too tight. There have been a few of these "crop circles" in our area that they have had to come back and modify shortly after they were completed.

Big part of anything new is educating the public on proper use. I think the state has fallen way short on this. Only complicated by drivers who insist on doing their own thing no matter what common sense or the law dictates. State of Wisconsin likes to "spin" their use of roundabouts as being safer...jury still out on this considering all the accidents we've had in immediate areas where these things are located, ie. metropolitan areas with high volume of car and truck traffic. Small towns might be "ok" but still question supposed increase in safe traffic movement.

I'm guessing real underlying reason for increased use of roundabouts Is they are initially cheaper to build than intersections controlled by conventional stop lights. What I see in years down the road is additional money spent to remove and replace with traditional stop lights and dedicated turn lanes.

Have been to Mt. Horeb many times by motorcycle..
YES the round-abouts are spaced close together, and one of them is on a slight rise, making for interpreting who's coming uphill very dicey!!! (Especially if that someone is on 2 wheels, and people aren't expecting to see 2 wheels, just 4....

I left Madison in a snowstorm. Thought I would get coffee at McDonalds. The snowplow left a BIG berm on the entrance to each Roundy. Good thing I was in the pickup instead of the little car.
There is another dangerous round a bout north of Verona on County M. N43.04620 W89.53312.
I was S/B on Pleasant View, enroute to Verona on another trip. A guy was W/B towards Valley View Road. He was able to negotiate through at about 50mph. If you look at Mapsource you can see that neither of us had to merge, just drive straight. That is a poor design, just like my original example.

They've also had a lot of roundabouts in the northeast US since the early days of motor traffic without a higher accident rate that I'm aware of. I don't think they're particularly dangerous. You have accidents at traffic light intersections and accidents in roundabouts. It's drivers who aren't paying attention at intersections that lead to accidents, not roundabouts per se.

That mess in Mt Horeb is silly. At least there is not much traffic. The first time I took the east one, there were NO signs and even finding the town was hard. My wife had me going the wrong way but I found the right exit. Another horrible round about is Happy Valley Road and I-17 in Phoenix. Wife won't let me go thru it.

That is the exit with the landfill just west right? I can see all those trash haulers going round and round.

Michael

...as they are called in New England, are great if designed correctly. If not, they are a royal pain. The people here in SW Ohio are starting to install these things where they should not be and they are going to create all kinds of problems.

Although I'm generally a fan of roundabouts the ones at 202(Red Mountain Freeway)and Brown and 202 and McKellips in Mesa are pretty stupid. Luckily there is not a huge amount of traffic on either of them.

The big thing about roundabouts is that they are a heck of a lot cheaper than having a stop light there. That's what the counties are trying to do to reduce their long term costs.

That, of course, & speed cameras!

Sorry. Couldn't resist!

Fred

An article in the Milwaukee paper:
Green Bay is in Brown County