Didn’t anyone think to get some data? It would be fairly easy to prove whether the road markings worked or didn’t work by comparing car speeds before and after the project. Hopefully, officials have or are accumulating data, but you’d think a journalist might at least ask this question. Lazy (i.e., bad) reporting.
There are these great studies (about efficiency and morale in the workplace, but the principle holds) that demonstrate that often it doesn’t greatly matter what change you make - it matters that you make a change, that you’re seen to be interested and to be paying attention. In response to this evidence of involvement, people tend to behave better. I’d not be surprised if these silly wavy lines slow traffic for a time, until they become familiar. Not because of some special property of wavy lines, but because local drivers will notice and appreciate (or even deprecate) the effort.
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It might be worth thinking about removing the lines altogether.
Roundabouts (or rotaries, for those who are right) need the traffic rules posted clearly at the rotary itself. Cape Cod (popular tourist area in Massachusetts) has a few rotaties, and the rules in MA are people in the rotary have the right of way. Add a bunch of tourists, used to different rules, who love to break IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROTARY, and fun ensues.
Excuse me?
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Absolutely not. No true Scotsman would let his(her) rage diminish just because of some wavy lines. QED.
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Why not just teleport?
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Clearly the solution is to get drunk before driving on that road, then it will seem normal.
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Roundabouts are great in the UK, terrifying in the US since nobody understands them here. People just don’t understand the priorities.
In my neighborhood, they just put stop signs on two of the four roads at a mini-roundabout, which makes no sense at all.
I was told once that it doesn’t matter which way you go around mini-roundabouts either, as long as you slow down.
I think it’s because they’re relatively new in most of the US. Places that have had them for ages manage to shove lights on the damn things (DC I’m looking at you!), confusing the matter even more.
Part of it also has to do with our God given right drive everywhere, because that’s what Americans too, and by God I will be first!
The restaurant here sells T-shirts that say “I Survived the Circle!”
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My civil engineer friends have told me that supposedly, this country has got a obligatory minimum radius of curvature for the highways to keep drivers attention to the road. Of course they may have been pulling my leg and the fact is that the country just isn’t flat enough to lend it self to building straight roads.
40 years later and they would have been those kids.
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“We have not been contacted by any local residents or road users to express any concerns about these markings.”
Prosser: But the plans were on display.
Arthur Dent: On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar.
Prosser: That’s the display department.
Arthur Dent: With a torch.
Prosser: The lights had probably gone.
Arthur Dent: So had the stairs.
Prosser: But you did see the notice, didn’t you?
Arthur Dent: Oh, yes. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign outside the door saying “Beware of the Leopard.” Ever thought of going into advertising?
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