Yield? Not bloody likely. It’s all about getting there first and you know it!

THE CHALLENGE The intersection of Soldiers Field Road, North Beacon Street, and Nonantum Road is a roundabout. Well,maybe it’s a rotary. There is a difference, but the distinction is no doubt lost on the swarm of grim-faced drivers bearing down on the rotary with ratcheting adrenalin levels. And, of course, knowing the distinction would, in no way, alter their behavior. Unlike traffic lights or stop signs that sometimes become unavoidable interruptions along the commute, drivers know the rotary is something that, if handled adroitly (that is to say, aggressively), should not impede their travel in the least. And, knowing that the best defensive driving is a good offensive driving, virtually every driver is prepared to drive like ass.

HISTORY: BLAMING THE BRITS
Say what you will, roundabouts—often misidentified as traffic circles or rotaries—have taken a lead role in traffic management thinking since their 1963 appearance in England, birthplace of other sound motoring legacies such as the left-hand driving thing and British Leyland Motors. Check out roundaboutusa.com, one of dozens of websites espousing the virtues of roundabouts with giddy zealotry. Even Alaska has weighed in on the matter at alaskaroundabouts.com . But “traffic circles,” the roundabout’s now-discredited precursors, were hardly new in the US. Circles were a key element of L’Enfant’s 1791 design for Washington, D.C., representing a federalist idea of designing prominent squares and circles at the intersections of diagonal avenues to commemorate national heroes. Washington now boasts 22 traffic circles, most named after Civil War generals, which may, or may not, have been what L’Enfant had in mind.

At this point, I should explain that roundabouts—so say the academics—are not the same as traffic circles and, possibly, rotaries. The key distinction—aside from some geometric considerations—is that roundabout rules of engagement insist that drivers entering the roundabout yield to traffic already in the roundabout. This may well be a specious distinction since neither research nor recollection can produce a traffic circle ucing "lost time" (the time wasted starting and stopping at traffic controls), stabilizing “headway” (the rate at which vehicles enter an intersection), and proscribing “subordination” (left turns from a shared lane). Studies show that rouin which the rules were otherwise. Nonetheless, roundabouts are all about “calming” traffic flow by redndabouts reduce injury crashes by 30 to 40 percent while eliminating left-turn accidents. And they do create a wonderful center space that can be the site of landscaping, fountains, etc., although that never seems to be the case in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts is not the only state in the Union with roundabouts: an estimated 1,000 roundabouts are now calming and pacifying drivers across the country. Utah alone is the proud owner of more than 100. And, it could be worse: France has over 25,000, giving it an impressive, albeit ludicrous, penetration rate of one roundabout per 2,400 citizens.

NIMBY: WHY ROTARIES ONLY MAKE MATTERS WORSE IN BOSTON
Roundabouts do have their drawbacks: they are substantially more costly than conventional traffic control devices, they are hard for large trucks to negotiate, and they are not particularly pedestrian-friendly. But their biggest drawback, at least in the minds of the Massachusetts motoring public, is that they just don’t work. Here is my take on why

Research has identified two groups of drivers: those who understand the right-of-way rules and approach the intersection with absolutely no intention of honoring them, and those who understand the rotary right-of-way rules and approach the intersection with some sort of inane idea that the others will honor those rules. That same research shows that nearly 97% of Massachusetts drivers fall into the former category, with the remaining 3% comprised primarily of seminary students, men wearing socks with sandals, and others unlikely to be swayed by the derision of others.

There is a third group: drivers who are truly ignorant of the right-of-way rules. But this group is so small as to be statistically insignificant, which is an important point because roundabout advocates always trot out the old novelty shibboleth: roundabouts are new, drivers are unaware of the rules, it takes time for the concept to catch on, etc. Needless to say, this is abject patoowy, since motorists have been orbiting circular intersections for almost as long as there have been cars and everything any driver needs to know about a rotary is conveyed by that large yellow “Yield” sign.

Many years ago, I shared a cab with a native Bostonian who told me: “OK, so Massachusetts drivers really do suck, but it’s not their fault.” “Ahh…and who is at fault?” I asked. Without pause and without any apparent embarrassment for the utterly lame thing he was about to say, he replied, “The system.” “Ahh,” I say. “How’s that?” At which point, by way of example, he tells me about rotaries and how everyone knows that traffic already on the rotary has the right of way but that Massachusetts has another law which awards right-of-way to any vehicle approaching from the right, and so, with such contradictory motor vehicle governance, “how on earth should drivers be expected to know what to do?”

DON"T BLAME ME: THE EMPIRICAL BASIS FOR DRIVING LIKE ASS
Fair enough. My cab partner had it right: drivers DO know the rules and there ARE seemingly contradictory rules regarding rotaries. Unknowingly, he was describing the well-established postulate of Massachusetts driving which states the likelihood of driver compliance approaches zero when the number of reasons for non-compliance is greater-than or equal-to one. Thus, Massachusetts drivers have found they can ignore both rules and still feel good about it.

The Mass achusetts DMV Handbook is a laugh a minute, but I practically wet my pants when I read that “the right–of-way is something you give, not something you take” followed by the admonishment to “be especially generous and careful when extending the right-of-wa y to other drivers in and near rotaries”

Right-o! In a city where control devices such as a traffic lights and stop signs effect so little compliance, how in the name of sweet Henry Ford can we expect more from an intersection that asks motorists to “be especially generous and careful?” Well, the answer is: duhhh…we can’t.

Enclosure