American Fear of Roundabouts
Americans seem to have a habit of hating change. Change and everything related to roads. The culmination of these two fears reaches its peak form whenever the building of a new roundabout in America happens.
Never is there such an outcry than when a driver must face the terror that they are going to have to learn how to slow down a little bit, instead of coming to a complete stop.
In honor of the terror introduced by building a roundabout in rural America, let's look at some common threads of roundabout hate.
The Fear and Hate of Roundabouts.
First, there are those out there who hate roundabouts in general.
Then there are those who specifically hate the person who invented roundabouts. Such as this commentator... who likens roundabouts to Wal-Mart parking lots? What?
Or this person, who believes the inventor of a roundabout should be... tortured??... by being forced to use their invention for days? What?
They're so dangerous!
Despite numerous studies showing how roundabouts reduce the number of collision points in an intersection, and how they significantly reduce fatalities because the roundabout design turns those collisions into low-speed fender benders, people still seem to think that roundabouts are medieval corpse generating circles.
Holy shit. I need to stop and unpack this funeral director's roundabout comment. Conspiracy theory time.
"I would like this because dead bodies make me more money." seems to be an odd point to make about roundabouts. Especially strange given that roundabouts are proven to reduce the number of fatalities that happen at the intersection that they replace.
I can only speculate that this funeral director knows how much business that intersection gives him. So using a little white lie and reverse psychology, he phrases his ghoulish desire in such a way that he makes a case for the more deadly intersection to remain, thus keeping his business full of bodies.
Then there are those who think roundabouts are a waste of money
"Why hasn't anyone thought of the taxpayers!?"
Then there are those who are too patriotic for roundabouts.
We get it. We are driving in America, not Europe. Any attempt to adopt things that have been proven to work well overseas is nothing less than a threat to America.
Many people are worried that they screw over the truckers
Because of course those idiot college boy engineers never think about our blue-collar trucker friends. Hasn't anyone ever noticed how every place in the world that has ever put in a roundabout has done so as a middle finger to the trucking industry to run them out of town?
See? Utterly impossible for anything larger than a Mini Cooper to navigate a roundabout. Maybe an actual trucker could chime in?
Then there are these people
These people who will boycott an entire city that puts a roundabout in is my favorite form of roundabout haters. If a major point of roundabouts is to ease congestion on intersections, these people help spectacularly by completely removing their vehicles from the equation by never going to that town again. Kudos to you.
Those who come around. (No pun intended)
Like most things that people fear, all that is needed is to interact with that with which you fear to come around and realize you have been worrying over nothing. To end the comments on a positive note, here are a few people who have admitted to wanting to hate roundabouts, but have since come around after using them.
Roundabout Bingo
Is there a plan to add a new roundabout in your neighborhood that has the local Facebook comment section all up in a buzz? Kick back, relax and see if you can be the first to score bingo on this handy Roundabout Comments Bingo Card! Click here to get a shuffled and interactive version to play with.
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