Circle game

If you've traveled in France, you will have noticed that ronds-points or carrefours giratoires (traffic circles) are everywhere. For the past thirty or so years, France has been converting intersections into traffic circles to improve traffic flow and safety. Circles slow traffic down, but keep it moving, and they eliminate nasty crashes due to drivers running red lights or stop signs.

A circle in Noyers-sur-Cher, across the river from where I live. Notice the lack of pavement markings. This is a two-lane circle and one that I use frequently.

Some of the communities around my home town in upstate New York have been putting in traffic circles in recent years. I've read that they're met with howls; American drivers are not used to them and tend to panic. But the data I've seen on them show that, while minor accidents increase in the period just after the circle is built, the severity of accidents drops dramatically. As people become used to the circles the minor accidents decrease as well.

A similar sized circle outside of Albany, NY, USA. See all those lines and words and arrows painted on the street surface? No wonder people panic.

When I first navigated these new circles in the US, I was struck by the overkill of signage and pavement markings around them. Here in France, there is normally one sign to tell you that you are approaching a circle and that you must yield in addition to the standard directional signs. There are very few pavement markings.

Navigating the circles here is just matter-of-fact. Nobody panics. You enter the circle when it's clear (you don't have to stop) and when you're in the circle, you have the right of way. And you signal when you're exiting the circle. With the lack of signage and pavement markings, you can pay more attention to other vehicles moving in and out of the circle.

This little circle in Paris can be a bit challenging. Still, notice the lack of pavement markings!

Mind you, I'm talking about circles outside of major urban areas. Suburban circles can clog with high volumes of traffic and big city circles, or places, are a different animal altogether (although not as much as you might think).

I think traffic circles are a vast improvement over signalized intersections. First of all, there's no set of traffic signals to maintain. And to me there's nothing more frustrating that idling at a red light when there is no other traffic in the intersection or having to sit through over-engineered multiple turning phases waiting for my green arrow. The fact that all traffic has to slow down to enter and navigate the circle makes me feel a whole lot safer, too.