Driving in France

Also, for me, my French is adequate for touristic purposes, but
it is slow and I'm not especially familiar with traffic patterns
and signs.

Traffic signs will be using standard international symbols, so don't
worry about that.

Unfortunatly Doug's from a place that doesn't care about international
standards

says the martin the most prolific OT poster


"Martin" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
...

On 13 Nov 2011 09:15:43 -0800, Doug Anderson
wrote:

Johannes Kleese writes:

Roundabouts work very well when entering traffic yields to traffic
in
the circle already. They work very badly under every other crazy
scheme I've seen tried (primarily in the US - I don't know why we
can't get the simple idea of how a roundabout is supposed to work
through our heads.

That's a matter of education. According to professor Werner Brilon,
big gun in German traffic science, British drivers are able to get
70,000 cars through a roundabout per day. The Germans, new to
roundabouts and used to obey (traffic lights, in this case , at most
25,000.

There certainly is an issue with education. But if the local traffic
authorities build roundabouts and then make different decisions in
different place about whether traffic on the roundabout has the
right-of-way or traffice entering the roundabout has right-of-way no
amount of education can counter the chaos.

That is what has happened in some parts of the US.

Luckily this group is all about Europe. :-)
--

Martin

martin has a lot of free time...


"Martin" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
...

On Sun, 13 Nov 2011 09:31:01 +0100, Johannes Kleese
wrote:

Roundabouts work very well when entering traffic yields to traffic
in
the circle already. They work very badly under every other crazy
scheme I've seen tried (primarily in the US - I don't know why we
can't get the simple idea of how a roundabout is supposed to work
through our heads.

That's a matter of education. According to professor Werner Brilon, big
gun in German traffic science, British drivers are able to get 70,000
cars through a roundabout per day. The Germans, new to roundabouts and
used to obey (traffic lights, in this case , at most 25,000.

Maybe something to do with roundabout design as much as with the
drivers. How many lanes does a German roundabout have?


Same goes for those who plan roundabouts. Apparently many have no idea
what they are doing and/or fall back into old "intersection habits".
Not to speak of those cities that hand the planning over to street
construction companies - who in turn have contracts with or are even the
same as traffic light manufacturers …

Brilon published a few papers on roundabouts (in English), see
http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/verkeh...er/brilon.html
section Download about one page down.

They don't work well when there is heavy traffic and a predominant
entry point. Down stream traffic can't get into the roundabout.
You find traffic lights at the access points of some UK roundabouts.

Yes, but then why have a roundabout at all? Why not just have a
traffic light that has a long green in the dominant traffic direction
and a short green in the other direction?

Well, traffic lights don't work well when there is only little traffic.

I'd say a roundabout with lights works better than a normal roundabout
if the lights are on during rush hour, and works it works better than a
normal intersection if the lights are off during the rest of the day.

Yes.


I'm not asserting all intersections should have roundabouts. But if a
roundabout is appropriate in the first place, the rule should be
"traffic in the circle has the right of way."

Exactly.

I've found some dangerous situations in UK. On the route that links
the M1 to the A50 near Derby for example. Traffic lights which are
there to help pedestrians at a roundabout are mixed on the same route
with traffic lights for the traffic on the roundabout. If you aren't
familiar with the route you automatically think that the lights are to
control the traffic on the roundabout.
I've also found places where the phasing of the lights is wrong, in
parts of Sheffield for example. The upstream traffic got a green just
before you got a green. The situation may have changed in the
meantime.
--

Martin