There used to be a jughandle locally, at the intersection of Rockville Pike and Randolph Road. The intersection has since been grade separated.
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We got one of those, too. The roundabout was put in to slow down traffic which generally sped through the area. But there wasn’t enough real estate for the roundabout. The turn radius is far too tight for delivery trucks, school buses, large SUVs, etc. So the curbs are very low. So low, in fact, that people speeding on the straightway started just going straight through it, the curbs cause less of a jolt that the speed bumps a bit farther down the road. So then they put in a four-way stop.
Round-a-bound: https://youtu.be/o9Oso7199WE
Unfortunately I have seen enough British people who think they have the “God-given constitutional right” to stop in the middle of them, and will probably try to quote the Magna Carta at you to prove it.
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Can someone remind me of what type/amount of education is required for a drivers’ licence in the US? I get that these are unfamiliar, but core principles like “drive on the right side of the road” should be pretty difficult to forget.
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The Hangar Lane Gyratory is the best name I’ve come across for a roundabout.
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Not to mention:
Protected left turning. Lights for the left turn lanes turn green before the ones for the rest of the traffic, generally allowing 3-6 alertly & intelligently driven vehicles to make their turns unimpeded. The rest of the lights eventually also turn green. The left turn lanes’ lights turn back to red when the rest of the traffic gets going, or soon after, and the folks turning left line up again. (My southern Californiyahn BF’s mind was blown when I told him about that.)
The magical signs advising Michigan drivers that at a given intersection, they are allowed to “complete left turn when traffic clears.” This means we can make our left turns before the light changes. It is mostly seen where turning on to a one way street or divided highway, (That one also freaked the BF.)
After making a complete stop, pedestrians and traffic permitting, a right turn is allowed while the light is red, unless signs indicate otherwise. Jeremy Clarkson said Michigan’s right turn on red law is a major reason Detroit is his favorite American city.
Roundabouts are happening in Michigan. Saw one out in the country, in Oakland county. It was an hour or so N of Detroit. My BF and his brother each took turns talking about 2 or 3 different ones they’d encountered in Michigan, and where they were. Saw that one which had been built in Detroit (the city proper, not the sprawling suburban metropolitan area) was mentioned on the news w/in the last 5 years.
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London is getting especially good at sticking cameras on these now and issuing automatic penalty notices (though most in London are normal junctions rather than roundabouts).
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Back when I started to drive in NJ (and as a delivery driver up and down the state for a few years in college) there were a bunch of traffic circles, but I’d say I’d see an accident about once a week. Then they started ripping the circles out and replacing them with traffic lights.
I think there is a certain traffic density - which most of NJ exceeded a long time ago where a circle is no longer a viable option.
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The city near me has an intersection ripe for a roundabout. Seven roads with all-way stop signs. Which is an improvement over the old system, stops on six of them, and the seventh with the right of way.
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Not in western Wayne County or much of Washtenaw County - the protected left turn arrow comes after through-traffic, but it’s preceded by a blinking yellow arrow while through-traffic has green.
I don’t think I’ve lived in a state this wasn’t allowed?
Are you talking about 10 Mile at Napier? That one’s deceiving! You’re not in the country there, you’re in Trumpite suburban hell.
I don’t have to travel that far to find one, though. State Street at Ellsworth, Superior at Geddes, and Geddes st US-23 are all close to me. My favorite when there isn’t much traffic is M-14 at Maple - that one’s a double, perfect for drifting. I don’t go up to Brighton much, but Lee at US-23 has a series of 3, and MDOT just put in a pair at Territorial and US-23 a few years ago. The county still needs to put one at Whitmore Lake and Territorial to make the exits from US-23 work correctly.
tl;dr - they’re popping up everywhere in SE Michigan.
True, but if they avoid police well enough not to be ticketed throughout their life, some people can get away with only having to take the written test a couple of times in their lives, and the driving test only once. 
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Well, it’s only recently that us Norwegians have had to re-take driving tests periodically too - until recently, your licence was valid for a hundred years, though technically you’d likely lose it once you got old and frail/blind/deaf enough to no longer be a safe driver. People are still able to remember to drive on the correct side of the road the vast majority of the time though!
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Changing lanes may be permissible where you’re from but not where I’m from. I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta and there we don’t change lanes in a roundabout. That link takes you to the Alberta government website for roundabouts and traffic circles. In there is a link to the driver’s ed manual with the rules that apply there.
Of course laws, regs and customs will vary by jurisdiction. I imagine if I tried to drive in one of your traffic circles with people changing lanes I would lose my shit just like the folks in Kentucky.
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New Jersey. It’s a “circle” not a roundabout or rotary.
Because, New Jersey. 
Can anyone really explain “New Jersey”? 
Traffic on route 34 doesn’t yield to anyone. Both lanes mostly just fly through the circle. Cars driving south on 34 trying to exit to Allaire Rd east will frequently back up in that little bend on the southern side. Sometimes 2 wide, even though it’s not really supposed to be 2 wide. This can lead to the inside car making the jump onto 34 earlier than the outside car if they think a small gap is big enough, even when the outside car isn’t that aggressive.
It’s really not any better than a long left turn lane followed by crossing 2 lanes of traffic.
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The trouble with this approach is that it only works if nobody enters the roundabout in the outer lane when it is clear, even if they see you approaching in the inner lane on the roundabout. And (pedantry alert) if you enter in the inner lane you cross the outer lane to get there so that’s technically changing lanes and you do it again when you exit from the innermost lane,by again crossing the outer lane in order to exit.
If I saw you already on a roundabout, circulating in the innermost lane and I could use the outer lane to enter and leave immediately at the next junction, I would. And if you were intending to exit at the same junction there would be a potential conflict. You may or may not have been indicating your intention, of course.
And the classic Chevy Chase clip of not being able to exit a UK roundabout is not because he can’t change lanes, it is because he won’t. He expects the lanes nearer the outer edge of the roundabout to be empty so he can cross them. They aren’t. He needs to indicate and change lanes, working to the outermost lane as he approaches his exit (or in his case, any exit).
For ‘drive on the right’ types, here’s a nice one from France.
One of the roads leading off is one-way away from the roundabout, but all the others are 2-way streets. 4 of the 5 approach roads have smaller roundabouts before they get to the larger one. Technically, you could approach via any of those, go around the smaller roundabout, and then go nearly all the way around every other smaller roundabout nd rejoin the larger one, just for the hell of it. And FYI it is called Place Patton because it is named after that American General and there is a Sherman (?) tank in the middle of the larger roundabout.
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Well, it works for the people there. Like I said originally, you can enter on the outer lane only if you are going 1/4 of the way around. That way you will exit alongside anyone who is in the inner lane taking the same exit as you (because they were going 1/2 or 3/4 or all the way around in the inner lane).
You can also safely use the inner lane to go 1/4 of the way around because you know the traffic entering to your right will be exiting along with you.
I see your examples are of circles with more than four roads. I don’t recall having any of those in Edmonton so their rules are most likely not written for those cases.
As long as we’re clipping maps, here’s the closest circle to my childhood home. It’s a simple prairie town with simple circles.
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I guess your rule does also rely on two lanes on every one of the 4 approach roads, two lanes all round the roundabout and two lanes on every exit. (And, as you imply, only 4 roads which would otherwise be a crossroads.) Simple circles, as you say.
Not always the case over here. Very far from it. Any number of converging roads from 3 to many. Some of them may have 1, 2 or 3 lanes approaching and/or exiting. (I’ve seen 4 lanes approaching, too.)
With 3 or 4 lanes on an approach road, you have to merge to the outside if you are going almost all the way round and the exit only has, say, 2 lanes, or even only 1 as shown below.
(And at this point I’m not trying to argue with anyone, just having fun…)
So in the example below, bearing in mind we drive on the left and go around clockwise, if you started at the yellow circle and wanted to exit at the red one,where there is only a single lane exit, you absolutely MUST enter in the right hand lane, stay in the innermost / right lane until roughly where the blue circle is and then start changing lanes, working your way to the outside, so that you are in the outermost lane before you get to the red circle. Note the lane markings at the blue circle.
At busy times if you tried to exit where the red circle is, from the innermost lane on the roundabout you would (a) likely cause an accident or (b) be blocked/stuck and have to go around again - the Chevy Chase scenario or (c) possibly manage it with several men in white vans hooting loudly and casting aspersions on your manhood/womanhood and parenthood and maybe following you just to ‘have a polite word’ at the next intersection. 
(I thought about flipping the image to make it look like drive-on-the right-country, but thought better of it.)
Of course, some may say “that’s not a mere roundabout, it’s a complex intersection design/gyratory” but as noted earlier, we Brits are trained from birth to treat them all the same and that’s why they all work. There is no greater sin than carving everyone up on a roundabout because you failed to be in the correct lane for your exit. The worst is the one who is in the innermost lane, is blocked, and STOPS waiting for a gap!!
“Go round again you wanker, don’t fuck the rest of us up!”
From now on I’ll be adding “Where do you think you are? Fucking America?”
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Love that, wish more of the country would adopt.
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I think the people going into the left lane are probably people who cannot grasp the concept of a round-a-bout. They do not understand that you are supposed to drive all around the circle until you get to the exit you need to take. They Think “I want to turn left”, so… they go left.
See also “jug-handle” intersections.
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