Developing: Redskins delayed in getting to tonight's Ravens game; stuck in a DC traffic circle

[Tommy_Carcetti]

[coyotespaw]

1. Why the hell is Dallas sucking so bad today?

T.O. is even more useless than usual so far.

[billyskank]

2. What the fuck is that?

:wtf:

[Chan790]

3. That is a DC traffic circle...

I was under the impression you had those in London too. They just look bad, it's not that hard to figure out.

The car in the inside lane always has the right of way over the car in the outside lane and the car in the outside lane has the right of way over the car entering the circle. Unless you are entering at one street and exiting the circle at the next, it is not-legal (but unenforced unless you cause an accident) to travel in the outside lane; you have to enter the circle, merge to the inside lane, travel until the street you intend to exit the circle to is next, then merge to the outside lane.

Yeah, I totally spent like 20 minutes stuck in one my freshman year of college traveling around and around...in a circle.

This has been "Navigating a DC Traffic Circle." Reason #47 to use the Metro instead of driving in DC.

[Kutjara]

4. Indeed, the UK is the home of the "roundabout."

The rules are pretty much the same as you laid them out, except in the opposite direction (clockwise rotation instead of counterclockwise, since Brits drive on the other side of the road).

I used to live in Germany, before they too adopted the sensible approach to rights-of-way on roundabouts. At that time, cars coming onto the roundabout had priority over cars already on it, which led not only to enormous jams during rush hour, but also some spectacular crashes.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. ZOMG! The Redskins are driving on the wrong side too!

At least, they would be if that were a DC traffic circle. From the fact they're driving on the left, you can deduce it's probably a British roundabout; and the picture name of 'Magic Roundabout' pretty much confirms that. I'll guess it's the system commonly called that in Hemel Hempstead - it's a nightmare one where 5 roundabouts cluster round 1 centre; I'm not surprised billyskank hasn't seen that one before. Because I'm pedantic, I'll now look up the HH one to see if that's it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Close - it's Swindon, not Hemel Hempstead

Hemel Hempstead: http://www.googleearthcoolplaces.com/related.php?place=magic_roundabout

Swindon: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/image_galleries/wiltshire_live_search_gallery.shtml?15

[billyskank]

7. Yeah, we have loads of them

but they just look like this:



As for Americans saying they're too hard, I just laugh and say even my mum (who hates driving) can manage them. But that thing you posted the picture of looks insane!