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

It's finally happened. Little DooDah is getting a roundabout. I know, I know. You can stop laughing now. The purpose is to funnel traffic around the east side of the city away from Main Street to make it possible to get out of town faster. Most people would agree with that sentiment.

Here's the problem. At least 50% of the drivers here aren't smart enough to figure out a four way stop. Nor can they understand that their half of the road isn't square in the middle, that they don't have to come to a complete stop before making a right turn or that it is ~not~ ok to make a left turn out of the far right hand lane. And don't get me started on the folks who think it's perfectly fine to use the left turn lane as a driving lane. So, please tell me, how are these inept drivers going to figure out a roundabout? It boggles the immagination.

Remember that old Kingston Trio song about the MTA? "Did he ever return? No he never returned, and his fate is still unlearned. He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston, he's the man who never returned." Or something like that. I have this vision of cars going round and round forever, not knowing how to get off of the roundabout.

On to happier things. The library will be 100 next April. I'm planning a year of events to celebrate. One of the things I want to do is feature a decade each month. Start with the teens in April, 20s in May, etc. I'm thinking of showing a popular movie from the decade, have a song and dance program for each one, feature the prize-winning books, that sort of thing. For the 30s I want to show King Kong and have one of those huge blow-up apes climbing the outside of the library.

Anyway, I'm trolling for ideas here.

ahh its true the Americas have finely joined the rest of the world roundabout craze

passports is my input to the problem give everyone passports


RJR The living proof

I can tell you how it will be, Hypatia, because we've got a couple of the darned things in our neighbourhood. All your fears are correct. Roundabouts and ancient Southerners do NOT mix. (We've just come back from the grocery store on senior-discount day. That parking lot is a dangerous place.)

Congrats on the anniversary. The last couple of days, we've been watching 'Project XX' on Netflix. It's an old tv series produced in the 50s and 60s by NBC:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0926182/

It's 'history lite', and not exactly hard-hitting and/or revisionist, but the archival footage is amazing, and it goes by periods: 'The Innocent Years' (1900-1913), the Roaring Twenties, the Thirties, the world wars, and a fabulous one about the post-war years, 1945-50, that's practically subversive. (Thrill to Ronald Reagan before the HUAC, gawk at young firebrand Richard Nixon...)

One of their great tricks is to use music under the images. If you know the lyrics to the songs, you get a little chuckle...

Certainly a great series for the kids, if you can snag it. Emphasis is on life in the US, lots of pictures of kids doing ordinary things. And at 50 minutes a pop, not too stressful on the attention span.

Oooo, you might want to try and make the school kids make a roundabout dog Hyp!A17300323

In my neighbourhood, the kids are quite persistent. If a dogs gets stolen or vandalized, it won't take more than a couple of days before there is a new dog. Again. And again. And again.

For ideas, google for pics using the word 'rondellhund'. They can be arty, stylish, primitive, any way you want.

Hah! We've just recently gotten a new roundabout down here near NASA. Houston proper has had a few roundabouts for years but out here in suburbia it's obviously not in most drivers' comfort zones. So, go to google maps and plug in these coordinates to see where they've just completed (still under construction in the image) our latest roundabout...

29.57732,-95.032643

In the middle of an empty field/woods! I came across it quite by surprise recently myself. It's pretty easy to navigate a roundabout when you're the only vehicle on it.

I'm sure it won't be that way for long though. Obviously a whole new bunch of little boxes, all made of ticky-tacky, that all look just the same, will pop up around it soon.


As to the century... I had a great thought about bookending the films. I recently watched Hugo and I thought it would be great to open it with a Méliès film and end with Hugo (featuring Georges Méliès as played by Ben Kingsley). Méliès films were quite popular a century ago but they were halted by the start of the War.

The English are the best in the world for roundabouts - they even have some extreme ones such as the "miniroundabout", which is a dot in the middle of the crossing, but must be treated as if it was a roundabout, and the Swindon Magic Roundabout, a giant counter-rotating roundabout with five normal roundabouts orbiting around it.

A2998452

http://www.swindonweb.com/index.asp?m=8&s=115&ss=289&t=THE+MAGIC+ROUNDABOUT

I'm not sure how you lot manage without roundabouts. One of their advantages is that they provide an easy spot to make a U-turn. You just go all the way around. Sometimes, in fact, you might even be encouraged to: one supermarket in town has a left-turn-only policy at the exit. You pull onto the road and turn left. If you wanted to go right, don't worry: there's a roundabout within a few metres. Just swing all the way around and off you go. This makes the traffic flow much easier, as cars don't have to pull all the way across the road to turn right, which would be a tricky manoeuvre at that spot.

TRiG.

the dog's (GOD BLESS'UM) have decided that the fire place is the best place in the house, so i need a roundabout to get round them

Ti, my entry on roundabout dogs *needs* an illustration. Can't you snap some of the dogs where you are? And send to Tavaron?

Am a little worried about the traffic skills in Little DooDah.