The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) wants to let Central Florida residents know that roundabouts are safe and work, or rather that, “Roundabouts are cool, yo.”
September 16-20 is National Roundabouts Week if you happen to be a transportation nerd. It’s all about convincing the public of the “safety and benefits of roundabouts,” namely because Floridians, in general, seem to be scared of intersections without traffic signals.
According to FDOT, conventional intersections have 32 conflict points whereas roundabouts have eight and allegedly reduce the number of fatalities in collisions by up to 90 percent and an overall reduction in crashes with injuries by 76 percent.
There are 20 roundabouts on Florida highways and over 300 on local roads statewide.
Tips for using a roundabout include:
- When entering a roundabout, pay attention to upcoming signage for which lane to use.
- Always remember to yield and check for a safe gap in traffic before joining the roundabout.
- Once you’re inside the roundabout, continue on your way at a safe speed and use your turn signal before you exit.
- Incoming traffic should yield to you once you are in the roundabout, but stay alert and use caution.
- Always look and yield to pedestrians and bicyclists in crosswalks.
- If you’re a pedestrian, use the designated crosswalks to travel through the roundabout.
- Bicyclists can choose to travel through the roundabout as a vehicle, or walk their bikes across using the crosswalks as a pedestrian.
