Crash prone 'modern roundabouts'

[billpa]

Many close calls for this driver at roundabouts in 2017.  Supposedly this is just part 1 and focuses on "failure to yield".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zShxhYSA7Dc

Wow, those were some horrible crashes.  Blood everywhere.

SM-T230NU

[tradephoric]

^That video is a compilation of just one driver's roundabout adventures in 2017 in Kitchener, Ontario.  Multiply that dash cam video by all the other daily drivers that use the town's roundabouts and it's not surprising so many crashes are happening.  Blood is being shed at Kitchener's roundabouts, but authorities are just not counting those crashes.

Roundabout death? Motorcycle speeding, lost control on wet road, before Kitchener crash
https://www.southwesternontario.ca/news-story/6225063-roundabout-death-motorcycle-speeding-lost-control-on-wet-road-before-kitchener-crash/

The motorcyclist crashed into a Kitchener roundabout, their bike ending up in the central island, and it's not considered a roundabout fatality.  Easy to say that roundabouts are safe when fatalities aren't counted. 

[cjw2001]

By that logic you should be arguing to close every Freeway and Interstate in the country.  I hear far more about fatalities on the local Interstate highways on a regular basis - roundabout fatalities are quite rare by comparison.

[tradephoric]

By that logic you should be arguing to close every Freeway and Interstate in the country.  I hear far more about fatalities on the local Interstate highways on a regular basis - roundabout fatalities are quite rare by comparison.

The interstate system is the safest road system in the country with 0.8 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.  By comparison all road types had a fatality rate of 1.46 in 2004 (source: FHWA).  Much of the safety improvements in Carmel over the past decade can be attributed to the fact that two dangerous surface streets were converted to grade-separated freeways.  The interchange roundabouts built along Keystone Parkway and Meridian Street were simply a byproduct of the freeway expansion.  The remaining non-interchange roundabouts in Carmel seemingly haven't reduced fatalities.  In August 2014, a driver was killed after losing control at the Pennsylvania St. and 106th roundabout.  In September 2014 a motorcyclist was killed after colliding with the curbing along the 126th and Hazel Dell Parkway roundabout.  And there have been 3 fatalities in a decade at the 96th and Westfield roundabout.

There have been 5 documented fatalities at Carmel roundabouts.  Contrary to popular belief plenty of signalized intersections still exist in Carmel (and there were lots more traffic signals than roundabouts in the city just a decade ago).  So CJW how many fatal crashes have there been at Carmel traffic signal over the past say 20 years?  You got to catch up to at at least 5.... and even then roundabouts supposedly reduce fatal crashes by 90%... so you should easily be able to find more than 5 fatal crashes.

EDIT:  It's a serious challenge for you CJW.  A good place to start would be the City of Carmel Police Department Annual Reports.  I've cross referenced the fatal crashes listed in those reports over the past decade and they correspond to the fatal roundabout crashes I already cited (or they were non-intersection fatalities).  I'm personally having trouble finding the latest signalized intersection fatality in Carmel but maybe you will have better luck.

[jakeroot]

^^
Crash rates are relative; shouldn't you already have data on Carmel's signalised junctions? If there were five fatalities in the last twenty years at Carmel roundabouts, but sixty fatalities in the last twenty years at signalised junctions (whether they exist now or were converted), that would mean the roundabouts have proven safer (as long as fatalities are the main measure).

[tradephoric]

^^
Crash rates are relative; shouldn't you already have data on Carmel's signalised junctions? If there were five fatalities in the last twenty years at Carmel roundabouts, but sixty fatalities in the last twenty years at signalised junctions (whether they exist now or were converted), that would mean the roundabouts have proven safer (as long as fatalities are the main measure).

I found one fatal crash that happened at a signalized junction in Carmel over the past decade.  On February 4th 2007, Charles Ricky watched the first half of the Super Bowl at the Moon Dog Tavern before leaving for his girlfriend's house.  On the way there he was involved in a single vehicle accident and rolled his truck near the signalized intersection of 116th and Hazel Dell Parkway.  When his abandoned truck was discovered, Charles was nowhere to be found.  Ricky's family and friends searched for him for over a month before his body was discovered at the Martin Marietta aggregates pit along 96th Street in Carmel.  Investigators believe Charles tried to walk back to the tavern after wrecking his truck and either got lost or was taking a shortcut through the quarry and fell down a perilous drop in the darkness.  Police determined Charles died of exposure. 

Charles Ricky's fatal crash proves that every signalized intersection in Carmel should be converted to roundabouts.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/missing-man-s-body-found-in-carmel-gravel-pit
https://www.wthr.com/article/missing-lawrence-man-found-in-carmel-quarry

[jakeroot]

Charles Ricky's fatal crash proves that every signalized intersection in Carmel should be converted to roundabouts.

Well yeah, obviously.

[jeffandnicole]

^^
Crash rates are relative; shouldn't you already have data on Carmel's signalised junctions? If there were five fatalities in the last twenty years at Carmel roundabouts, but sixty fatalities in the last twenty years at signalised junctions (whether they exist now or were converted), that would mean the roundabouts have proven safer (as long as fatalities are the main measure).

I found one fatal crash that happened at a signalized junction in Carmel over the past decade.  On February 4th 2007, Charles Ricky watched the first half of the Super Bowl at the Moon Dog Tavern before leaving for his girlfriend’s house.  On the way there he was involved in a single vehicle accident and rolled his truck near the signalized intersection of 116th and Hazel Dell Parkway.  When his abandoned truck was discovered, Charles was nowhere to be found.  Ricky's family and friends searched for him for over a month before his body was discovered at the Martin Marietta aggregates pit along 96th Street in Carmel.  Investigators believe Charles tried to walk back to the tavern after wrecking his truck and either got lost or was taking a shortcut through the quarry and fell down a perilous drop in the darkness.  Police determined Charles died of exposure. 

Charles Ricky’s fatal crash proves that every signalized intersection in Carmel should be converted to roundabouts.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/missing-man-s-body-found-in-carmel-gravel-pit
https://www.wthr.com/article/missing-lawrence-man-found-in-carmel-quarry

Speaking to the choir, dude.

[billpa]

^That video is a compilation of just one driver's roundabout adventures in 2017 in Kitchener, Ontario.  Multiply that dash cam video by all the other daily drivers that use the town's roundabouts and it's not surprising so many crashes are happening.  Blood is being shed at Kitchener's roundabouts, but authorities are just not counting those crashes.

Roundabout death? Motorcycle speeding, lost control on wet road, before Kitchener crash
https://www.southwesternontario.ca/news-story/6225063-roundabout-death-motorcycle-speeding-lost-control-on-wet-road-before-kitchener-crash/

The motorcyclist crashed into a Kitchener roundabout, their bike ending up in the central island, and it's not considered a roundabout fatality.  Easy to say that roundabouts are safe when fatalities aren't counted.

So a motorcycle crash linked to speeding on a wet roadway 'should' be blamed on the roundabout? If this type of accident had happened at any other locale you never would've heard about it because you only search for "accident" and "roundabout" in Google news.

SM-T230NU

[D-Dey65]

Didn't the frequent accidents at the Hawthorne Circle make most highway engineers realize that traffic circles/roundabouts are a hazard, which in fact forced the former parkway commissions in Westchester County to replace it with a partial stack interchange? And now they have an exact reversal of this thinking.

This "new urbanism" shit just keeps pissing me off more and more.

[jakeroot]

traffic circles/roundabouts

Traffic circles ≠ roundabouts. Largely similar, yes, but remarkably different in the ways that count.

Clearly, these roundabouts aren't as perfect as we all thought. However, I think most civil engineers (and even tradephoric) would agree that they are miles better than any of the old traffic circles seen in New England (minus those that have been converted, such as Latham Circle).

[tradephoric]

^That video is a compilation of just one driver's roundabout adventures in 2017 in Kitchener, Ontario.  Multiply that dash cam video by all the other daily drivers that use the town's roundabouts and it's not surprising so many crashes are happening.  Blood is being shed at Kitchener's roundabouts, but authorities are just not counting those crashes.

Roundabout death? Motorcycle speeding, lost control on wet road, before Kitchener crash
https://www.southwesternontario.ca/news-story/6225063-roundabout-death-motorcycle-speeding-lost-control-on-wet-road-before-kitchener-crash/

The motorcyclist crashed into a Kitchener roundabout, their bike ending up in the central island, and it's not considered a roundabout fatality.  Easy to say that roundabouts are safe when fatalities aren't counted.

So a motorcycle crash linked to speeding on a wet roadway 'should' be blamed on the roundabout? If this type of accident had happened at any other locale you never would've heard about it because you only search for "accident" and "roundabout" in Google news.

SM-T230NU

According to the latest region of Waterloo collision report, the roundabout at Homer Watson and Block Line Road was the most crash-prone intersection in the region with 435 crashes over the past 5 years.  These are just the crashes that have been classified as roundabout crashes by local authorities (notwithstanding motorcyclists crashing into roundabouts).  Here are the intersection rankings:


http://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/gettingAround/resources/2016_Annual_Collision_Report.pdf

The Block Line roundabout averaged 10.2 FI (Fatal/Injury) crashes per year and has the highest annual cost to society due to collisions in the region.  The roundabout opened in 2011 and is right next to St. Mary's High School.  The roundabout gets a tremendous amount of pedestrian traffic and within months of opening two pedestrians had been struck in the crosswalk (including a Grade 11 St. Mary's student hit by a transit bus).  This led to student protests at the roundabout and ultimately a crossing guard was put in place to assist the high school students crossing (they must feel like they are back in elementary school!).  Here's an interesting roundtable discussion about the Block Line Road roundabout and a video demonstrating just how much pedestrian traffic it gets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_Qdz2v4gPQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6yYJYgdNTA

The proposed roundabout near St. Benedict referenced several times in the roundtable discussion was never built.  Several roundabouts were constructed along Franklin Blvd but none right next to the school.  The poor performance of the Block Line roundabout most likely led leaders to scrap those plans.

[kalvado]

traffic circles/roundabouts

Traffic circles ≠ roundabouts. Largely similar, yes, but remarkably different in the ways that count.

Clearly, these roundabouts aren't as perfect as we all thought. However, I think most civil engineers (and even tradephoric) would agree that they are miles better than any of the old traffic circles seen in New England (minus those that have been converted, such as Latham Circle).

With all that talk from our european friends about removal of lane markings - do you think we're about to return to basics?

[tradephoric]

The second most crash prone intersection in the region of Waterloo was the signalized intersection at Ottawa Street and Homer Watson.  It had 178 crashes over the past 5 years.  Well the city just finished converting the signalized intersection to a triple lane roundabout similar to the roundabout at Block Line Road.  The result has been 34 crashes in 29 days including 4 injury crashes.   A cyclist was struck by a minivan while she was cycling through the roundabout and is interviewed in the report below:

Ottawa/Homer Watson roundabout sees 34 collisions in 29 days
http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-homer-watson-roundabout-sees-34-collisions-in-29-days-1.3671232

At the current crash rate the new triple lane roundabout will see 2138 crashes over the next 5 years, including 251 injury crashes.  Wow, what an improvement!  OK, so what's a more reasonable crash estimate?  Considering the Ottawa Street roundabout carries nearly 20k more vehicles per day than the Block Line Road roundabout, it could easily top 500 crashes over the next 5 years (Block Line Road had 435 crashes in 5 years).  Any city official who believes the Ottawa Street roundabout will reduce total crashes is delusional (and reading articles from just a few years back when the Ottawa Street roundabout was being proposed, that was their claim).  I had my doubts they would even go ahead with the Ottawa Street roundabout after all the problems the Block Line Road roundabout experienced, but they forged ahead with it. 

It's somewhat surprising they are going ahead with building a massive 3x2 roundabout at Ottawa Street & Homer Watson Blvd after all the issues with the Homer Watson Blvd & Block Road roundabout.  Based on your link, Ottawa Street & Homer Watson Blvd is the most crash prone intersection in the entire region.  Time will tell if the crash problem gets better or worse after the roundabout is completed. 

[tradephoric]

[tradephoric]

The proposed roundabout near St. Benedict referenced several times in the roundtable discussion was never built.  Several roundabouts were constructed along Franklin Blvd but none right next to the school.  The poor performance of the Block Line roundabout most likely led leaders to scrap those plans.

Coincidentally a transport truck flipped over and lost his load at the Franklin Boulevard and Clyde Road roundabout about 3 hours after i wrote that post.  It had traffic tied up for hours, partially closing the roundabout.  While crews were cleaning up the mess a 2-vehicle crash on the Savage side of the roundabout left 2 people in hospital with minor injuries.  Not only are Waterloo Police dealing with a reported crash a day at the new Ottawa Street roundabout, they got to deal with trucks tipping over along Franklin Blvd.  Another entertaining day in the region of Waterloo thanks to their "safe" roundabouts.

Truck flips on side in roundabout, loses load
http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/truck-flips-on-side-in-roundabout-loses-load-1.3696192

[tradephoric]

Many close calls for this driver at roundabouts in 2017.  Supposedly this is just part 1 and focuses on "failure to yield".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zShxhYSA7Dc

Wow, those were some horrible crashes.  Blood everywhere.

SM-T230NU

You can joke about seeing blood everywhere but Cassi Lam isn't laughing.  She was the 16 year old St. Mary's high school student who was hit by a municipal bus shortly after the Homer Watson and Block Line Road roundabout opened.  Cassi's injury accident isn't an isolated incident.  Over the past 5 years the Homer Watson and Block Line roundabout was deemed to have the highest cost to society due to collisions based on the region's own published report.  The roundabout has averaged 10.2 injury crashes a year which is about the same number of injury crashes as the most dangerous signal in the region (even as the roundabout carries 16k fewer vehicles per day).  And the roundabout had a whopping 257 more total crashes.  If you look closely there was blood on the streets in that video of a driver navigating through the Waterloo roundabouts...  you just got to get your eyes checked.

[tradephoric]

Caltrans reclassified the Los Alamitos Circle in Long Beach from a traffic circle to a modern roundabout in 1993.  But they basically just converted it from stop control to yield control and the basic design still mimics that of a "traffic circle".  I personally wouldn't consider it a modern roundabout, but the Los Alamitos Circle does have triple entry lanes at all 4 approaches.

How is the Los Alamitos Circle in its current configuration not the same configuration as a roundabout?

If you want to be strict, technically it's too big to be classified as a modern roundabout (a stupid requirement in my opinion), but more importantly, it lacks guidance lines. Many of the east coast "traffic circles" have been converted to yield control for all entries, but they still lack guidance lines so they are still often referred to as traffic circles or rotaries.

That said, due to the sheer number of lanes that flow through the Los Alamitos Circle, I think it works better without guidance lines. Apparently the British who helped design it agree, since they're the reason there isn't any today.

Here is a TRB discussion about the Los Alamitos Circle conversion from the man behind it. Talks to convert the circle to a "modern roundabout" began in 1985 when Leif Ourston pitched the idea to John Burnside who was working for Caltran at the time.  According to John congestion virtually disappeared after the conversion but accidents remained a problem.  John also mentions that there are no striped lanes in the circular roadway to conform to British practices of the day. 

Subject: Re: Los Alamitos Traffic Circle, Long Beach, California

I am very pleased to weigh in on this discussion as I was the Caltrans employee charged with the operation of the Los Alamitos Traffic Circle when Leif Ourston walked up to my desk in December 1985 and offered to help me and Caltrans fix it.  (Hence the line in my signature below, "Designing roundabouts since 1985.")  Since I was having no success solving the large number of accidents at each of the four entries, I said, "Show us how!"  This was the beginning of my love affair with roundabouts.

I will now set out to answer, as best I can, the statements and questions of others, and Wikipedia. Caltrans, being a huge government organization, was not about to go along with this totally unknown "roundabout" nonsense without a whole lot of scrutiny.  That's why it took 7.5 years until "30 June 1993," as Andrew O'Brien correctly stated, to get it converted.  It was initially thought that this site was too big and busy for California's first roundabout, so we looked for a smaller site to start with.  In Ojai (also mentioned by Andrew) we found a three-legged signalized "Y" intersection of two state highways that had congestion and sufficient right of way because it was previously a triangle with three "Y" intersections.  Lief worked up the design (the outline of which is still the logo of Ourston Roundabout Engineering, q.v. at http://www.ourston.com/).  Leif and Caltrans senior engineer Al Maas (an early "believer") began meeting with the locals.  The public, Planning Commission, and City Council loved it for a few months . . . until a local high school teacher charged that Caltrans was "experimenting with the lives of our children!"  The tide quickly turned against us, and Al Maas saw the handwriting on the wall and pulled the project before the locals could shoot it down.  So Andrew, Ojai was before Los Alamitos, but it was never built.

So then we timidly turned our attention back to Los Alamitos (Al Maas and I were gung ho, but the rest of Caltrans was scared to death).  Leif slowly educated us, bringing over first Frank Blackmore and then Andrew O'Brien to try to persuade us.  The plans called for making all entering traffic yield to circulating traffic, including two entries that operated in the reverse.  To augment capacity, entries were flared to as many as four lanes by cutting into the splitter islands.  I probably should have mentioned that this is a huge circle, with a 55-foot circulating roadway around a 360-foot diameter central island (chop down the eucalyptus trees and you'd have room for an international soccer game--my other British passion).  The revisions were completed and traffic began full use of the new roundabout midday on 30 June 1993 with Leif and I there to witness the first PM and AM peaks--we stayed overnight at the motel on the circle.  Congestion virtually disappeared but the accidents went down by only about one-third, as I recall.  So there is to this day an accident problem, contrary to Wikipedia.  The problem is the speed.  Caltrans had only a quarter million dollars for this project--if we had a million dollars we could have done as New York state did by constructing a completely new smaller roundabout inside the existing one, thus controlling the speed.  Today, as I understand it, Ourston Roundabout Engineering is under contract with Caltrans to design spiral striping to increase the safety.

What else?  Wikipedia says, in part, "Also added were wider lanes, redundant traffic signs, and devoted lanes for traffic traveling only 90 of the 360 degrees of the circle."  There are NO striped lanes in the circular roadway (a change order from the plans to match British practice at the time), except for the two "devoted" free-rights, which were not new but were there before the modifications. I am personally indebted to Leif Ourston for much of what I know.  His pioneering spirit allowed him to design the first two modern roundabouts in the USA in Summerlin, NW of Las Vegas, and these are three-laners!

John Burnside, P.E.
Consulting Traffic Engineer
Designing roundabouts since 1985
INs and OUTs of ROUNDABOUTS
10628 Melody Road
Big Oak Valley, CA  95977-9537
530-432-6526
530-575-5007 cell
530-432-6511 fax
_________________________________________________________
From:    "tonyrvt@aceweb.com" <tonyrvt@ACEWEB.COM>
Subject: Re: Los Alamitos Traffic Circle, Long Beach, California--Really?

Crash rates at roundabouts are rather meaningless--injury rates are critical.  The Long Beach roundabout data was published about a decade ago showing a sharp reduction injuries and erasing daily circle lockup at peak hours.  At the time about 15 years ago--Leif Ourston can provide the details--Ourston published the before and after injury data.  The Brattleboro (VT) Keene Turn Roundabout crash rate is up during the first five years of roundabout operation over signals with protected left turns--but the injuries before were 55 (11 per year) including a fatality and 1 injury after--a 95% decline,  Reason for the crash rate increase?   Two design flaws which the State DOT has declined to address in spite of the fact that the bulk of the crashes involve commercial vehicles (tractor trailers).

A final note--because the Long Beach roundabout was one of the first in the US. Catrans decided against reducing the size of the circle, just roundaboutizing it otherwise. This was unlike the first NYSDOT which reduced the circle to a reasonable size in their first roundabout, a two-laner in Kingston, NY.

The question becomes would there be more or fewer crashes if circulating lane markings were added or if the central island diameter was downsized?  Both questions are debatable.  It seems like no matter what is done to these complex circles, they are prone to lots of crashes (big vs. small; lane lines vs. no lane lines... it doesn't seem to matter).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRFKfERL5ZQ

[kphoger]

The question becomes would there be more or fewer crashes if circulating lane markings were added or if the central island diameter was downsized?  Both questions are debatable.  It seems like no matter what is done to these complex circles, they are prone to lots of crashes (big vs. small; lane lines vs. no lane lines... it doesn't seem to matter).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRFKfERL5ZQ

In my mind, that's because there's more room to work with.  If a person crosses a lane line or makes a sudden move, it's more likely to not be right at a conflict point.  To put it another way, it functions more like a series of four Y-intersections than as a single intersections.

[kphoger]

I'm cross-posting this at the suggestion of a member in another thread.


Accident-prone crossroads and roundabout on the A140 at Hempnall to be replaced - with more than £3m of funding

[jakeroot]

Here is a TRB discussion about the Los Alamitos Circle conversion from the man behind it. Talks to convert the circle to a "modern roundabout" began in 1985 when Leif Ourston pitched the idea to John Burnside who was working for Caltran at the time.  According to John congestion virtually disappeared after the conversion but accidents remained a problem.  John also mentions that there are no striped lanes in the circular roadway to conform to British practices of the day. 

Subject: Re: Los Alamitos Traffic Circle, Long Beach, California
[clipped]

Wow, great read! Thanks for posting that. No surprise that the first real roundabout in the US was built in-part because of an engineer's anglophile-ness. I seem to recall one Jim Brainard also being a bit of an anglophile! Nothing wrong with that, of course...the TRL has come with a lot of very cool stuff.

The question becomes would there be more or fewer crashes if circulating lane markings were added or if the central island diameter was downsized?  Both questions are debatable.  It seems like no matter what is done to these complex circles, they are prone to lots of crashes (big vs. small; lane lines vs. no lane lines... it doesn't seem to matter).

I do honestly think that, when geometry gets tough, people tend to "drift". They either approach too quickly and have no time to react, or intentionally approach at-speed, fully intending to drift-about. Regardless if roundabouts are large or small, you need to turn your wheel to continue. I think that particular fact is where roundabouts are having trouble. Why exactly roundabouts suffer from this problem, and not any other bend in the road, I don't know. Drivers genuinely just don't seem to notice them.

Here's something that the British do, that I haven't yet seen in the US: countdown warning lines(?); lines in the road that gradually get closer and closer as you approach the roundabout. They're typically yellow in the UK. Ideally, these would be audible. If you're approaching a roundabout with your eyes focused elsewhere, the sudden grooves would get your attention. It's easy to ignore signs, but I've yet to meet anyone that wasn't alarmed by rumble strips.

[MNHighwayMan]

Maybe it's just me, but those lines seem a bit excessive, as in there's too many of them for too long (lengthwise).

[kphoger]

Here's something that the British do, that I haven't yet seen in the US: countdown warning lines(?); lines in the road that gradually get closer and closer as you approach the roundabout. They're typically yellow in the UK. Ideally, these would be audible. If you're approaching a roundabout with your eyes focused elsewhere, the sudden grooves would get your attention. It's easy to ignore signs, but I've yet to meet anyone that wasn't alarmed by rumble strips.

I know of roundabouts that have rumble strips in advance, but they're all in rural locations.  Here's an example on US-50 in Kansas.

Not aware of any in urban settings.

[jakeroot]

Maybe it's just me, but those lines seem a bit excessive, as in there's too many of them for too long (lengthwise).

The speed limit along that road is 70, so they actually go by pretty quickly.

I know of roundabouts that have rumble strips in advance, but they're all in rural locations.  Here's an example on US-50 in Kansas.

Not aware of any in urban settings.

Interesting. I wish the rumble strip was placed a little later, though (and a bit more often, rather than just once). Speed limit 55, with only one rumble strip, doesn't seem adequate.

[kphoger]

I know of roundabouts that have rumble strips in advance, but they're all in rural locations.  Here's an example on US-50 in Kansas.

Not aware of any in urban settings.

Interesting. I wish the rumble strip was placed a little later, though (and a bit more often, rather than just once). Speed limit 55, with only one rumble strip, doesn't seem adequate.

There is more than one set of rumble strips.  Go west two or three mouse clicks, and you'll find another one.  And the speed limit along US-50 is 65 mph, by the way.  55 is just the reduced speed limit approaching town.