Should roundabouts in/around urban areas be banned outright??

The one I'm getting caught on a lot is where you've a bike lane crossing and it's marked where the cyclists can just go straight across, not yielding to left turning traffic. When you yield to them, there's always someone ready to beep at you.

I had one there yesterday where I yielded to a bike lane with quite a few cyclists coming up and a tax undertook me and nearly flattened a cyclist - and this was in a 30km/h zone close to Dublin city centre.

As far as I'm aware, you're supposed to treat cycle lanes as a traffic lane / pedestrian crossing, so you yield to any cycles in the lane before crossing. Always check my left mirror very carefully.

Give way to traffic already on the roundabout.

Thats all fine in theory…. but im not entering a roundabout when drivers are barrelling in at 70kph.

Yeah I had someone overtake me on a roundabout on Tuesday. I think we might need fewer/narrower lanes on roundabouts in general. Or maybe the lovely kerb-separated roundabout lanes that they sometimes have in NL.

In my eyes there's just no excuse for passing someone on a roundabout unless they're stopped, stuck in exiting traffic and you're taking a further arm. These roundabouts with the two lanes in and two lanes out really do need dedicated slip roads IMO.

If it's a major distributor of some kind then lights are better than a roundabout. But if it's just one of the proliferation of little urban roundabouts around the place then we just don't need that roundabout in general. Yield signs for the secondary road are better.

The problem we seem to be having is that nobody is willing to "disenfranchise" a developer by rendering their prime development land to be on a secondary road. Housing estates, industrial estates, etc all are getting "equal priority" through the use of roundabouts. And this continues through the developments themselves - all roads in an industrial estate or housing estate are equal etc. Thankfully this practice seems to be starting to fade away, but we're left with horrendous messes and roundabout purgatory in places like Swords, Carrigaline, etc.

In general these little urban roundabouts are being used to open up land development with minimal investment. So I think the least they could do is take up the additional required space and use a design that's friendly to vulnerable users.

Agreed that we're plagued with traffic lights too btw.

Until the bikes go this way and flip the honking car off 🤣

Yes,we do need them for more lightly trafficked roads. They are much safer than a crossroads, you can stagger a crossroads and make other changes but that totally negates any point about land take etc. You can have traffic islands, making crossing the road easier for pedestrians.

Roundabouts can be badly designed or inappropriately used, but the idea that they are never appropriate is nonsense.

Look at international comparisons of Roundabout to Traffic light… They are safer and cheaper… Lower Maintenance. If built properly can accommodate Active Travel better…

Traffic Accidents are less but far more serious than Roundabout accidents… Roundabout encourages less agresive driving..

By the way you say loads of Roundabout are a pain… Waiting in endless traffic lights with no one going is worse…

Are you asking for a more dangerous, more expensive, worse for Active Travel (when built properly) and slower…

https://levinsonstefani.com/roundabouts-vs-traffic-lights-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-for-left-turns/

But to make ist simpler… US uses traffic lights generally, Europe uses more Roundabouts… Which one is more interested in Citizens well being?

Then there is the Safety…

https://www.structurepoint.com/company/news/welcome-to-the-us-roundabout-capital

According to a study by the Insurance Institute for Road Safety, Carmel roundabouts have reduced accidents with injuries by 84 per cent, and accidents at these locations by almost two-thirds.

You should look up Carmel, Ohio… Great story which explains a lot..

Yep but is it really necessary to have all of the 3-arm suburban roundabouts? I'm not sure if you followed the whole thread but the examples we're mostly discussing are those suburban ones, where almost every single road joining is a roundabout with no provisions for VRU's. I was suggesting that these are a cop-out ("all roads are equal") and potentially just a sop to developers.

When you're talking about staggering crossroads I see exactly where you're coming from and that's a good point you're making about safety.

Agreed.

I use that regularly on my cycles out to Wicklow. It's armageddon sometimes. I've literally had dickheads drive onto the roundabout while I was a few feet away from exiting it.

I think while roundabouts are annoying, the main problem is the fact that we have a lot of just plain old fashioned wankers driving on our roads.

I don't mind roundabouts, and I'd take them over lights any day of the week.

We just can't seem to design them properly, or update them when traffic increases.

Lakeview roundabout in Midleton is a prime example. It's was already extremely busy at rush hour. The they built a big housing estate 200m up one leg and added a set of lights so residents could get onto the road. This backs up traffic all the way around the roundabout, meaning traffic from other legs can't even get onto the roundabout.

An absolute disaster.

Three arm roundabouts in residential areas are a traffic calming measure in many cases.

I don't really see how Carrigaline would be a named example of a town that's over-roundabouted. There are two busy ones and a handful of smaller ones and that's it. The main routes are signalised (east and west relief roads) and the new estate is also a signalled junction.

If anything Carrigaline is showing evidence of how councils are moving away from roundabouts, with the main reason being that they're horrific for pedestrians

I reckon that's the case alright. It's an archaic way of traffic calming though unfortunately