Think our roundabouts are a challenge?
 

Most Amazing Intersection!

My conclusion after a couple of views, their vehicles have great brakes and the pedestrians are wearing Nike running shoes and Depends.

This is what a major intersection with no traffic lights looks like.
How they are able to avoid accidents is quite remarkable.

In this time lapse video we see the intersection at Meskel
Square, the nerve center of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
While the square is a primary site for the city's large festivals
and celebrations, it is also a chaotic crossroad for thousands
and thousands of vehicles daily.

This is organized confusion at its finest. Pedestrians, walk with care!
LOOK AT THE PEDESTRIANS!

www.youtube.com/embed/UEIn8GJIg0E?rel=0


https://www.youtube.com/embed/UEIn8GJIg0E?rel=0

that's not a round-about! there's no markers, or a big landscaped middle, or even a circle painted on the road!

the fast play makes it look more dramatic and at regular speed would be just as intimidating. Absolutely amazing. I would like to know what the annual accident rate is for that intersection.

The pedestrians are brave souls that seem to have a method (of sorts).

Check the Swindon, UK roundabout. And remember… they're driving on the left. The Magic Roundabout in Swindon - Wiltshire

That intersection in Ethiopia looks like an ant hill, with all the vehicles and pedestrians scurrying about.

I have driven many times in England, and I have negotiated many "donuts" even some in a row, but nothing like that one in Swindon!

Here's an old photo of a car/truck/electric tram crash in my old home town of Sterling IL in about 1925 (the date's only a guess.....by the car models and when the trams quit running) I'll bet it made the front page of the newspaper!

I thought it would be bigger......

In the northeast, Massachusetts has some "famous" roundabouts, or rotaries as they are referred to by the locals. The one in East Longmeadow is quite interesting, especially during "rush hour."

What's interesting here is that you have to drive counter clockwise around the main roundabout and clockwise around the smaller ones.

UK drivers must feel very strange going counter clockwise around a roundabout.

I lived in The Philippines for a year. There are almost no traffic lights and Stop signs are pretty much unheard of. One of the things mentioned is that cars tend to go a lot slower. The video from Ethiopia is obviously sped up. But in these countries it is whoever can get the nose of their vehicle in first goes first. Obviously the biggest vehicles such a busses usually win.

Here's a photo of the Quezon Memorial Roundaabout. Keep in mind that it is nine lanes wide in some spots.

Lots of fun.
http://i1260.photobucket.com/albums/...psf69f69a1.jpg