People who don't know much about roads

[yanksfan6129]

There used to be many more traffic circles in NJ, but they are phasing them out.

[deathtopumpkins]

While other states like VA are phasing them in... odd.

But here no new shopping center or urban redevelopment or suburban hell is complete without a roundabout at the center. There's even a multi-lane one now that I drove through today. It moves traffic pretty fluidly between two major arterials.

[ComputerGuy]

WA also likes the new roundabouts...they're thinking about a roundabout interchange here in WA..

[Bryant5493]

^^ I wrote a letter to GDOT about converting one Metro Atlanta interchange (SR 279/Old Natl. Hwy. @ I-85/285) into a roundabout interchange. Traffic is a bear in the mornings, afternoons, evenings -- really, all day long (lol). Anyway, a GDOT representive wrote me back, saying that current regulations don't allow for multi-lane roundabouts -- only single lane roundabouts are allowed right now.


Be well,

Bryant

[deathtopumpkins]

Well froggie I've begun using the terms interchangeably since my driving manual says that "traffic circles" is the technical term for a roundabout, and as such calls them that.

[Duke87]

So far as traffic engineering is concerned, a roundabout is small and low speed, while a traffic circle is large and high speed.
I've never heard anyone in this country use "roundabout" in conversational usage, though. It's typically considered a Britishism. Colloquially, "circle" or "rotary" is what's used, at least around here.

[Chris]

My American voice on my TomTom GPS says "rotory", while I expected "Roundabout". I barely see anybody say or write "rotory" when they're talking about either traffic circles or roundabouts.

I think Duke87 is right about the terminology, roundabouts are usually referred to as one-lane, low-speed circles, and traffic circles as multilane, high-speed, maybe traffic-light controlled circles.

[yanksfan6129]

rotary=Massachusetts
everywhere else its roundabout or traffic circle, which are often used interchangeably, as they should not be

[mightyace]

everywhere else its roundabout or traffic circle, which are often used interchangeably, as they should not be

Exactly, yanksfan, Brentwood, TN has a roundabout near its post office but the signs leading up to it say traffic circle! 

[Norn-Iron]

Traffic Circle?

I gotta new one...
People who don't know what road they actually live on/just off!!!   

[Bryant5493]

^^ Yeah, that's very common and annoying.


Be well,

Bryant

[deathtopumpkins]

Well here people say "roundabout." Never heard someone actually call one a rotary. As for the difference being the number of lanes, doesn't seem to matter here.

And Norn-Iron, yeah that really is... ignorant people. 

[un1]

Person: "The road I live on goes all the way to there!"
Me: "No it doesn't, geez, look at a map for once!"

You don't know how often I say that. 

[Bryant5493]

^^ I overheard this lady on a MARTA train (Atlanta's transit line) ask how to get to a certain stop. A gentleman told her, "The map's right there." She said, "I can't read a map."


Be well,

Bryant

EDIT: I added the word "there."

[yanksfan6129]

^ Can't read a map?????

[Bryant5493]

^^ Yeah, I was astonished too.


Be well,

Bryant

[deathtopumpkins]

How is that even possible!?

[mightyace]

How is that even possible!?

Maybe she couldn't even read and was trying to cover up that fact.

[Bryant5493]

^^ That's a good thought.


Be well,

Bryant

[deathtopumpkins]

lol... that would not suprise me. 

[Duke87]

Some people just aren't very good with maps. I always laugh whenever I see someone turn a map upside down to read it because they're facing south, or on its side because they're facing east/west.

A lot of people have an easier time understanding maps if they have pictorial representations of things, like those little free handouts you find in towns all over the place.
Personally, I don't find those things very useful because they aren't drawn to scale and aren't even necessarily geographically accurate (i.e., that street they show pointing "southeast" actually points south). Not to mention that they always represent little residential side streets with just little stubs rather than actually drawing them out.
Now, I can understand where that would be helpful for a lot of people since it removes clutter and information they don't really need from the page... but at the same time, it means the map is incomplete, and if you dare venture off the beaten path, it's completely useless. Which bothers me.

Not about roads, but about rails... I find an awful lot of out-of-towners seem unable to make heads or tails of the NYC subway map. It's a map of a pretty huge system and it isn't exactly clutter free, so I can understand that but... some of them seem unable to read signs, too. Like that couple that got on an uptown 6 train at Grand Central despite the fact that they they knew they needed to go downtown - the signs on the platform all clearly said "Uptown and the Bronx" and the recorded announcement on the train also quite clearly said "This is a Bronx-bound six local train...". Or the woman at Union Square who asked me how to get to the N train while she was standing almost directly under a sign pointing to it.
It would seem that people, when confused and somewhere they're not familiar with, immediately panic and simply lose all ability to pay attention to their surroundings and use common sense.
Of course, that's New York, a big huge confusing city to anyone not used to it. MARTA is two little lines. There's no excuse there. 


Another story, this one from my mother. We were in Burlington, VT. We needed to get to the King Street Dock. Neither of us knew exactly where that was, but we knew it was somewhere downtown, and that we were north of town. So, using simple logic, I suggested that the best course of action would be to simply head south until we hit King Street and then make a right turn, towards the water. Because, you know, the King Street Dock is going to be where King Street meets the water, right? But my brilliant mother insisted that I didn't know that and that my guess could be wrong, so she insisted on asking for directions. You know what the guy said? "oh yeah, just keep going down the road, then make a right when you hit King Street. It's right there." >_>
I'll leave it up to the reader to imagine the livid torrent of "I told you so!" that followed.

Finally, the absolute worst.... you know how many time's I've had someone I'm out with ask "so how do we get home from here?" Happens too often. And whenever it does my first response is always "exactly the same way we got here". What's really frustrating is that the person actually can't remember how we got there... to which I have to inject my cutting sarcasm with comments like "you don't remember? You weren't paying attention to where we were going? Do you need me to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for you next time, Hansel?"
Let's just say I have a low tolerance for stupidity. Particularly when people can't figure out the obvious.

[Bryant5493]

Duke87 said:
Of course, that's New York, a big huge confusing city to anyone not used to it. MARTA is two little lines. There's no excuse there.

Yeah, the only thing that you have to watch out for is the Doraville and the North Springs trains. You can get on a North Springs train and go to Doraville (or vice versa), but you have to transfer at the Lindbergh Station (MARTA HQ). There was a time when the north line ended at Dunwoody, and that was little bit confusing, because of the northeastbound Doraville trains.

Also, the westline ends at H.E. Holmes (Hightower) Station, but has a spur line to the Bankhead Station. So, if you wish to continue to H.E. Holmes, you have to get off of the Bankhead train at the Ashby Station. (And some folks confuse Bankhead and Buckhead.)

But, really, if one pays attention, it's not a hard transit system to master. (I've made this post more complex that it needed to be. )


Be well,

Bryant

[Voyager]

My brother can't tell a map if he's looking at one.

[Michael]

Some people just aren't very good with maps. I always laugh whenever I see someone turn a map upside down to read it because they're facing south, or on its side because they're facing east/west.

My mother does that!  She needs the turn-by-turn maps!  I can look at a map once or twice, and know where I'm going.

[74/171FAN]

Those in NC that confuse US 64/US 264 with I-64 and I-264 in Virginia.  http://wake.mync.com/site/wake/news%7CSports%7CLifestyles/story/31402/stimulus-money-to-help-wake-roads