[cappyjon431]

Originally Posted by EdVinMass

Some of you are misunderstanding me. I never said that multilane ROBs were not the more efficient. And I don’t believe that they will be changed. I’m simply responding to the naïve notion that all will be well if everyone will simply learn and obey the rules. It’s sad but true that many won’t and will continue to cause accidents. And in the end, nothing can or will be done about it..

There is no doubt that it is naive to think that all will be well if everyone learned and obeyed the rules. There will still be accidents--that is why they are called accidents. But the same holds true with every other type of driving scenario: People know not to speed but they do it anyway, sometimes ending tragically. People know not to run red lights or stop signs, but it happens from time to time, often with terrible results. People know to look in their rearview mirrors before backing out of a parking space, but sometimes they forget/ignore this and it results in accidents (this one happened to me today). Learning the rules and obeying them simply minimizes the risk--but it will never eliminate accidents (even with single lane roundabouts!).

Originally Posted by EdVinMass

I never said that they were less safe than straight intersection. I said they were inherently less safe than single lane ROBs because of the undeniable fact that they introduce the possibility of two vehicles crossing each other’s paths which cannot be done with single lane ROBs..

I think the question that really needs to be asked is: How much safer would they be? A secondary question would be: Would the increase in safety offset the benefits of increased traffic flow that two lane roundabouts provide? I think a legitimate parallel argument could be made that we could dramatically decrease speed related deaths on the highways if we reduced the speed limits. Yes, it absolutely would be safer (how much is questionable), but would it be worth the slowdowns on all of the highways? Traffic would back up, it would take much longer to commute, longer for products to get to market, etc.

Originally Posted by EdVinMass

If the some of you want to continue to believe that the majority of the drivers know and obey the ROB rules so be it But since a picture is worth a thousand words, how much are 19 of them worth? I just went down to the El Camino/Morse roundabout and in the course of 7 minutes snapped these 19 drivers entering the roundabout with other vehicles already approaching.

Here’s a link to the photos. See for yourself.

I like that you actually went out and took the time to research this yourself, and I certainly wouldn't question what you saw. My question is: In this seven minutes of observation detailing 19 drivers entering the roundabouts "unsafely", how many accidents did you witness? Probably the same number that you would have witnessed if they had been single lane roundabouts.

Ed, I truly respect your passion for the subject and I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. While others appear to be bored with this topic, I enjoy the interchange of ideas. Perhaps because I am relatively new to TV and TOTV I am not bored with the discussion and i don't care if the thread count goes to 600 posts.