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It's October, and that means it's my least favorite season here in the Northern Hemisphere. No, not autumn. Autumn is actually very nice: football season is in high gear; hockey season is underway; the weather can be described as "sleeping weather"; Halloween is nigh; fall clothing, food and beers arrive.
Yes, autumn is splendid. Rather it's the scourge known as 'roadwork season' that agitates me. See, summer is the time when most road crews perform the old Three Stooges routine known as "One Man Works; Two Men Supervise." That's not to say our talented road work professionals are as inept as Larry, Moe and Curly when it comes to tools, but it does appear as though roadwork reaches a more fervent pace as frozen nights and days inch closer.
My drive to the office, where I carefully craft this excellence for you, now takes an additional ten minutes because crews are installing a rotary (a.k.a. roundabout; a.k.a. traffic circle) along the route. I realize this minor inconvenience will pay dividends, but that doesn't make me any less peeved that I must arise ten minutes earlier to account for this travel delay. It seems as though some of my coworkers didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel--or in this case, the circular piece of concrete at the end of the bulldozer.
Many who I've spoken with find the construction annoying, but are even more upset that yet another traffic circle is going to be installed. Some say they are confusing. Some believe they're an unnecessary taxpayer expense. Some say they're dangerous, as new, unexpected traffic patterns will amount to accidents and casualties. Others "just like the old way" and remind you that only socialists implement rotaries. (Truth be told France has half the rotaries in the world, at about 30,000.) And pretty much, unless they're familiar with The Magic Roundabout in Swindon, England (pictured right), they're wrong.
It also turns out that traffic circles are much safer than intersections. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that, when compared to stop signs or traffic lights, roundabouts result in a 90% reduction in collisions that cause a fatality and are 40% safer for pedestrians. Overall, auto accidents are reduced by 37%.
 Yet these traffic implements were almost phased out by the 1950s. Despite a lexicon where traffic circles, rotaries, and roundabouts are synonymous, they formally have very different definitions. Until recently traffic circles specifically referred to circular, circuited roads where the traffic entering the circle had the right-of-way, quite the opposite of what is expected today. Furthermore, traffic circles were meant to be driven without slowing down. That meant fast cars entered a traffic circle which already had more cars than it could accommodate. This was fine for 1905, when New York's famous Columbus Circle was constructed, but ten years later burgeoning automobile traffic nearly made the circle obsolete. Eventually, a more natural traffic pattern was instituted at Columbus Circle, likely saving it from a traffic light intersection.
I suppose my coworkers should get more used to traffic circles however, or ahem-roundabouts. Recent interchange designs place circles at the on- and off-ramps of highways. Gyratories, or rotaries which encompass whole blocks, have also become a common traffic solution, despite the one located at Hanger Lane in Britain being named one of the scariest traffic patterns in the world.
 There are some people who share my love of roundabouts. In the U.K., the Roundabout Appreciation Society enlists its members in general discussion about roundabouts, as well as their engineering and architecture. The society sells a yearly calendar to keep its organization financed, but has had to diversify their assets in recent years to attract new members. Johnny Barnes has stood at the same roundabout for nearly 30 years as he waves, blesses, and blows kisses at drivers who traverse a roundabout in Hamilton, Bermuda. He has become a local celebrity, and his days are chronicled in the film Mr. Happy Man.
It must be something about the pessimistic attitude of the United States. Perhaps an appreciation society or our own Johnny Barnes can change that.
Resources
Wikipedia - Traffic circle; Roundabout
WSDOT - Roundabout Benefits
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