The Roundabout Post

I knew eventually I would need to do a post about "The Roundabout".

Last summer, the girls and I decided on a day trip to the Medford Outlet Mall. As we exited off of I-35, in the tiny town of Medford, MN we encountered our first Minnesota roundabout. My immediate thought was, "Oh, man, everyone wants to be European. What a stupid waste of taxpayer $$$."

Then, as if that were not enough, they tore up 70th Street between France and York last year and put in three, count 'em, three roundabouts between the Galleria and the shops on the Target side.

We laughed (and cowered in fright) every time we entered one and watched confused Scandinavians try to negotiate these strange road circles.

Some would enter without yielding to the traffic already in the roundabout. Others, would go the wrong way (in the US, we go counterclockwise through roundabouts). What foolishness, I thought.

However, to demonstrate my openmindedness, I would now like to go on record as saying that the roundabout is one of the more ingenious traffic improvements ever.

I say this for a few reasons, not the least of which is the number of idiotic, insane drivers I have observed in the last month or so, who seem to think that a yellow light means "speed up." Almost every time I have driven lately, I have seen at least TWO cars SPEED through red lights. And, I mean red lights. I am not counting the enter on yellow as it turns red, I mean the speed up and enter on red cars.

Yesterday was an especially interesting day as I took Beth to the Oxboro Library for her 3:00 book club. We were sitting at the intersection of 90th and Penn in Bloomington headed east on 90th Street. We were stopped (not sure what color the light was actually) and I looked up to see a black SUV zipping, and I mean zipping, through the intersection headed south on Penn.

I said, "Oh, man, look at that guy Beth, he is obviously speeding."

As soon as those words got out of my mouth, I looked up and saw another speeding car head south through that intersection. This one, however, had red flashing lights, and the words POLICE on the side. This speeding car was followed by another one with the red lights, and another, and another. Over a dozen all told speeding through the intersection after said black SUV. Quite the spectacle, I must say.

When all the commotion was over, we cautiously continued our journey East, looking carefully at each intersection in case the black SUV doubled back.

I told Beth that I had never seen anything like that and that I was pretty sure it was all going to end with the guy flipping the car and getting out and running. (As I learned later, it did!)

In addition to speeding bad drivers and speeding criminals at intersections, the roundabout could have proven very effective if you had ever been sitting innocently at the intersection of France and 106th on a mid-April day in 2005 in your less than a year old Honda Accord and suddenly observed a car making a left turn on red being T-boned by an SUV headed south going through the intersection on red and found the T-boned car spinning in a circle hurling itself at your car as I did. There were 2 severely injured little boys in the T-boned car (they ended up okay), but looking back, it made a great case for the roundabout.

Basically the roundabout is designed to make intersections safer as the traffic flows better. What more could you want in an intersection? Reduce the occurrence and/or severity of accidents and injuries, stop or at least slow down criminals being chased by the FBI, and all the while keep traffic flowing.


So, I say, hip, hip, hooray for the roundabout.