h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well our local pillock in charge of road safety has added a new twist to the roundabout,pelican crossings.Can you imagine the gridlock when someone presses the stop button when you are just exiting the roundabout.I had up until now thought that roundabouts were a way of keeping traffic flowing while slowing it down.This is all turns to nonsense on a busy road with one of these at each exit/entrance to the roundabout.I guess it is just a way of helping the poor old cyclists out and keep them from getting in everyone's way ON the roundabout.I also hate it when the crossing instead of buttons has one of those pressure pads(usually at a cycle track crossing)as all too often one has to stop when the cyclist has long since vanished from view.An even newer idea is to put humps at the entrances/exits of a roundabout plus the added difficulty of a cycle track along the gutter.This makes life really exciting for cyclists if a driver misjudges their own speed and the height of the hump as said cyclist is negotiating the same roundabout+hump.

I worked in Nottingham for a while. A lot of the roundabouts near the university have pedestrian crossings just before or after the roundabout. It was a real pain in the rush hour, yet one of the guys I worked with reckoned it worked!

A few days ago I went to Mapquest.com to get driving directions for a place deep downtown in the Capitol... The hillarious part was that they described going round a roundabout at the beginning of the trip... At which point is exactly one stoplight and a single crossing ( + ) ... If you mentioned 'roundabout' to the inhabitants of the village in question, they'd look at you as if you were insane.

'Nonnie