'Dutch Roundabouts'

RichardD1970

Just seen this on the BBC website.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22347184

On the surface looks good, but would be interesting to see how it worked in real life.

mad_rich

Hmm

On a bike, it would take a huge leap of faith for me to be confident enough to go full speed across the access roads without checking that the car drivers coming on and off the roundabout really *are* going to give way.

I've cycled in the Netherlands, and it does take a bit of getting used to.

Strider590

Won't work, people will get killed.......
Drivers are not going to give way to cyclists at the entrance/exit of a roundabout.

Ich_2

As long as cyclists are prohibited from using the "vehicle" parts of the roundabout and it is enforced.

forgotmyname

Its OK when you have one or two cyclists every few minutes. What happens when its with loads of them.

Traffic will be at a total standstill. OK for outskirts, Quiet areas.

Half the time there wont be enough room to put it into practice, Thats when the issues start.

Confuse people with it being different.

pogofish

Is this a strange variation on the Dutch Oven?

Because IIRC, they don't have that many roundabouts in Holland.

Lum

It seems like it would be a good idea when people get used to it.

Personally I'm not a fan of cyclists doing a "wall of death" around the outside of the roundabout. I know they do it, I know it's in the highway code and I'm always prepared for it* but I've seen so many near misses coming from it.

It'd probably only work here if you raised the access paths up to curb level, but this means more bloody speed bumps as well as pedestrians blithering into the cycle lane as they tend to do if it's not sunken.

I think the biggest problem we'd have implementing this in the UK is the roundabouts that most need this conversion simply won't have the space.


*well there was one incident a while back where I was waiting to turn left onto a two lane dual carriageway, I waited until I was absolutely certain that the cyclist had left the roundabout and was proceeding down the carriageway, then I entered the roundabout myself intending to take lane 2, only for the cyclist to make a sudden 90 degree right turn into L2, re-enter the roundabout and then give a right signal, ended up doing a full loop around the roundabout thanks to that one.

Lizling

No way on earth I'd risk that. Just right out straight in front of an oncoming lorry or angry Addison Lee driver and just hope they've seen me? I've nearly been SMIDSY-d enough when I was part of the main flow of traffic wearing fluorescents, thanks. I can imagine exactly how well this would work if unexpected cycle lanes started popping up just where drivers are putting their foot down.

redux

Here is an interesting article I just found about the cycleways in Stevenage and a man called Eric Claxton who designed them into the town layout right at the beginning.

http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/stevenage/

It's a bit depressing how it demonstrates such a lack of progress since then, or even regression, as someone in the comments below points out that cycling around Milton Keynes isn't as good as Stevenage

System

Other ideas being tested include traffic lights with separate signals for cyclists.

Why? They have a tendency to ignore traffic lights at the best of times. Is it worth giving them another set to ignore?

CKhalvashi

Have we had John Griffin's response to this yet?

I think it's a good idea, and would happily stop (as I'm fed up of cyclists doing stupid things and nearly running them over), but feel that a number of minicab firms in London wouldn't be too happy with it!

CK