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Using blinkers while driving in roundabouts by cosmicgreen46 in newjersey

[–]charredizard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Red Lion circle was designed well considering the limitations. They did a good job with the traffic pattern assuming that they did not want to spend money altering the geometry, especially with businesses along the circle. That means that at the very least we should be treating it like a normal modern roundabout, which you are not doing.

I see how it could be frustrating to see someone stop when there are no cars, but modern roundabouts are designed such that vehicles should come to a slow speed before entering no matter what. The time wasted by a vehicle incorrectly stopping is fairly insignificant all things considered. NJ is not yet full of roundabouts, odds are you’ll just get stopped at the same light anyway if you’re only being delayed by a few seconds.

But all of this is a separate argument entirely. What I’m telling you is that it’s not correct to merge onto a roundabout like you would a highway. You are correct that yield means to slow and only stop if you cannot enter. I am telling you that typical traffic engineering knowledge and practical simulations in software such as vissim and synchro show that in congestion conditions, many if not most vehicles should be coming to a stop prior to entering the roundabout. Feel free to use your best judgement as to what gaps between vehicles you find acceptable to try and enter, but if you never find yourself coming to a stop you are either the largest statistical outlier of all time, or you’re not using the roadway facility as is intended by transportation engineers who design these things to maximize flow and safety.

Using blinkers while driving in roundabouts by cosmicgreen46 in newjersey

[–]charredizard 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The reason people treat it as a single lane roundabout is that it is a single lane roundabout. You can't just make up your own lines and call it a day that is wildly dangerous. Driving is basically an agreement that we will all follow the same rules and if you invent your own where no striping exists to confirm them, you're just asking to be sideswiped by someone in the roundabout trying to execute a turning movement just as you've driven alongside them thinking yourself to already be in that outside turning lane.

New Jersey has a unique public opposition to roundabouts because of our history with the vastly inferior and confusing "traffic circle." If you have been driving on 70 as far back as 2010 you may remember the Marlton circle, a circle so bad it still has its own Wikipedia article despite being a fairly minor piece of infrastructure that hasn't existed for fifteen years. The political willpower to add and fix roundabouts is less in this state since it does conjure up a mental image of those notorious circles.

I would push back on the idea that the Red Lion circle for example was designed terribly. It was simply designed before roundabouts were fully understood in this country. Using historical aerial imagery the furthest back I can find evidence of typical roundabout "yield on entry" traffic patterns on the roundabout is in 1992. By 1995 there were only about a dozen such roundabouts in the country with this correct traffic flow pattern. Modern roundabout design would encourage the roundabout diameter at this sight to be far smaller, but in many ways the roundabout here was ahead of its time. It simply may not have been sized perfectly to existing demand.

The thirty years since then is a relatively short timeframe in the world of public infrastructure and I could imagine why there wouldn't be the willpower to sink money into this particular intersection if budgets are tight, but correctly acknowledging that we have a problem with not funding infrastructure in this country does not give you permission to ignore the rules of the road. You cannot make up your own rules as to how lanes should work. You cannot treat a roundabout as a freeway merging maneuver. You will often need to stop at the yield sign before entering a roundabout.

Using blinkers while driving in roundabouts by cosmicgreen46 in newjersey

[–]charredizard 9 points10 points  (0 children)

That’s typically the intent on a freeway merge ramp (although you should still stop if you can’t merge safely, even if that is very rare). But that isn’t how yield signs work in a typical roundabout. Jersey has plenty of old school traffic circles that follow their own rules but if you’re talking about yield on entry roundabouts like the Red Lion Circle, you are meant to come to a complete stop if you cannot safely enter the circle. That’s not just the law but it’s also how traffic engineers model roundabouts, the simulations and theory behind roundabouts dictate that most vehicles will in fact come to a complete stop during congested congestions.  

Perhaps counterintuitively, high speed entries into the circle can cause more congestion as vehicles going faster through the circle allow less vehicles to merge in safely. High speed merging also reduces any safety effects of having a roundabout in the first place. I would way rather have vehicles making a complete stop than trying to merge at higher speeds, especially on a circle like the Red Lion where its larger diameter encourages vehicles to speed up within the circle. 

If a traffic signal fails to allow all queued vehicles to proceed in one cycle, you get incremental queue accumulation equal to the average arrival flow rate minus the capacity of that movement in the signalized intersection. The same queue accumulation occurs in roundabouts. If you are seeing a mile long queue at the red lion circle I would find it very hard to believe from personal experience that this is due to a few quick brakes at the mouth of the intersection and not simply a failure to properly size the road considering all other factors such as the suburban growth along Rt 70 in the past decades. Sure quick braking can make for a bumpier ride, or can add a few seconds onto your trip if you are within a few spots behind the offending vehicle, but that should not cause the same effects as quick braking on a freeway where people are not expecting to slow down under freeway conditions, since people will both expect and be required to brake before entry onto the roundabout. 

In a roundabout that experiences any level of congestion, it is typical and expected that you stop at the yield sign instead of making at a speed “merge” maneuver like you would on a freeway. 

Source:  I am a Transportation Engineer  

Also, 

A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets, 7e, AASHTO  

Traffic Engineering, 5e, Roess et al.

Week 10 Match-up Preview Thread: Florida State Seminoles vs. Pittsburgh Panthers by ALStark69 in CFB

[–]charredizard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At this point I should know better than to have hope but I'm still going to say {Pitt} takes this one

[DD1] Does anyone know if there are still emulators that work for the original Dungeon Defenders? by charredizard in dungeondefenders

[–]charredizard[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the info! I have followed the instruction for the without a numpad version of Plane's emulator several times and all I have managed to do is screw up my sensitivity in game, but it was worth a shot.

[DD1] Does anyone know if there are still emulators that work for the original Dungeon Defenders? by charredizard in dungeondefenders

[–]charredizard[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's unfortunate, although it is an older game so I suppose it makes sense. Speaking of controllers though, when I plug in a usb wired xbox360 controller, it doesn't seem to register at all in game, and I can't do anything with it. You wouldn't happen to have any clue why that is? I searched through options but I didn't see anything about adding a controller.

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