[COM] Britannia Roundabout

[[Shuz]]

No, people should just know how to drive through a roundabout. If they can't navigate an egg shaped roundabout compared to a round one, they shouldn't be driving at all.

[Torrens_5022]

Eggs aren't round, roundabouts should be round - the fact that Britannia has poor signage and poor visibility is due to it's poor design. The actual roundabout isn't difficult to use if you're familiar with, the fact people have difficulty using it is down to it's poor design.
People in Adelaide are not the best drivers and the fact that most drivers can't zip merge, a simple everyday task and that somehow many drivers somehow end up on the obahn shows that people are stupid.
So why do so many people think that since you drive through it everyday - therefore it's not a problem is ridiculous.

[Aidan]

Eggs aren't round, roundabouts should be round - the fact that Britannia has poor signage and poor visibility is due to it's poor design. The actual roundabout isn't difficult to use if you're familiar with, the fact people have difficulty using it is down to it's poor design.

Its poor design doesn't have much to do with the distorted shape. The real problem is the crossover at the NW end.

People in Adelaide are not the best drivers and the fact that most drivers can't zip merge, a simple everyday task and that somehow many drivers somehow end up on the obahn shows that people are stupid.
So why do so many people think that since you drive through it everyday - therefore it's not a problem is ridiculous.

Is it that Adelaide drivers can't zip merge? Or merely that they don't know when to?

[rev]

The real problem is Adelaide city drivers are mostly a bunch of moronic individuals who shouldn't be driving or riding anything, except public transport and even then they'd probably manage to make a mess of it.

It's a round about..give way to your right or traffic already moving through it.
Bloody simple stuff.

Is it that Adelaide drivers can't zip merge? Or merely that they don't know when to?

As per my first sentence, Adelaide city drivers are mostly morons.
Merging into traffic..for example Sir Donald Bradman driver onto Tapleys Hill heading south..the problem is two fold.
First, you have idiots who STOP, instead of merging into the gaps when gaps are available. Rather then accelerate, they brake and sit there.
Secondly, you have idiots who see them coming onto Tapleys hill, and accelerate, preventing them from merging onto Tapleys Hill Rd.

This represents the majority of drivers in the city.

Go drive on a country highway, and the majority behave very very differently. Drivers actually change into the right lane so you can merge into the left, or slow down a little and give you time to merge.
There's none of this hogging the right lane in your slow piece of junk while another slow piece of junk is hogging the left lane...the right lane is almost always guaranteed to be available to over take a slow moving vehicle. That rarely happens in the city.


Adelaide drivers are just plain stupid and moronic individuals, most of whom should not even be allowed to use a unicycle as transport.


Just imagine the chaos in the CBD if they introduced hook turns.

Two roundabouts to fix one where people are too stupid to navigate through?
Well, let's hope that it keeps some space between too many idiots converging into the same small area at once, and that results in fewer accidents.

[Aidan]

The real problem is Adelaide city drivers are mostly a bunch of moronic individuals who shouldn't be driving or riding anything, except public transport and even then they'd probably manage to make a mess of it.

It's a round about..give way to your right or traffic already moving through it.
Bloody simple stuff.

But it's not just a roundabout, there's also the crossover at the NW end.

Is it that Adelaide drivers can't zip merge? Or merely that they don't know when to?

As per my first sentence, Adelaide city drivers are mostly morons.
Merging into traffic..for example Sir Donald Bradman driver onto Tapleys Hill heading south..the problem is two fold.
First, you have idiots who STOP, instead of merging into the gaps when gaps are available. Rather then accelerate, they brake and sit there.
Secondly, you have idiots who see them coming onto Tapleys hill, and accelerate, preventing them from merging onto Tapleys Hill Rd.

This represents the majority of drivers in the city.

That intersection does have traffic lights, so if the through traffic doesn't let the turning traffic in, it's only delayed by a minute or so. There are no signs to tell drivers to merge, and the road markings don't show it to be a zip merge situation, so just because drivers aren't merging there doesn't mean they don't know how to.

Go drive on a country highway, and the majority behave very very differently. Drivers actually change into the right lane so you can merge into the left, or slow down a little and give you time to merge.

There's a lot less traffic on country roads, so changing lanes to let someone in is more likely to be practical. There's also few traffic lights.

[rev]

There's no traffic lights when you are headed west on Sir Don. and turn left onto Tapleys Hill.
You merge onto an 80kmh section of road. The only time it becomes difficult to find a gap is in peak hour. People seem to think they need to stop first.
The same thing happens when turning left onto Paynhem Rd from OG Rd. You come into the far let lane which merges into the middle lane.

The point is, as with Britania roundabout, Adelaide drivers are bad.
The basics are still the same at Britania.
I've never had any problems going through it..why do others?
And I live in Westwood, which is full of moronic drivers who pull out of their driver way when you're approaching, then proceed to drive up the street at 30kmh.

It's going to be interesting, probably funny to an extent, seeing how these same morons who struggle with one roundabout, deal with two within such a short distance.

What could fix problems like this, is making it compulsory that all driving instructors take their students through this roundabout.

[Torrens_5022]

Tapleys Hill and Sir Donald /Burbridge roads intersection has no zip merging it has a slip lane Rev

Aidan:
That intersection does have traffic lights, so if the through traffic doesn't let the turning traffic in, it's only delayed by a minute or so. There are no signs to tell drivers to merge, and the road markings don't show it to be a zip merge situation, so just because drivers aren't merging there doesn't mean they don't know how to.

This situation is not zip merging or entering a freeway it's a slip lane and the vehicles must give way to on coming traffic, there's a slip lane on each corner of this intersection.
Zip merging is where two lanes form one, slip lanes are the left turning lanes that come off the corners at roundabouts and traffic lights. and the vehicles in these lanes MUST give way.
Maybe the problem is not other drivers Rev, maybe it's you not understanding the difference of slip lanes and zip merging.

[Torrens_5022]

http://www.raa.com.au/samotor_features. ... &TerID=295
It even mentions Tapley and Sir Don intersection in the article on slip lanes

[[Shuz]]

You spin me right round baby, right round, like a record, baby.

Seriously, shouldn't this one be changed to U/C seeing as works have already started?

[rev]

Tapleys Hill and Sir Donald /Burbridge roads intersection has no zip merging it has a slip lane Rev

Aidan:
That intersection does have traffic lights, so if the through traffic doesn't let the turning traffic in, it's only delayed by a minute or so. There are no signs to tell drivers to merge, and the road markings don't show it to be a zip merge situation, so just because drivers aren't merging there doesn't mean they don't know how to.

This situation is not zip merging or entering a freeway it's a slip lane and the vehicles must give way to on coming traffic, there's a slip lane on each corner of this intersection.
Zip merging is where two lanes form one, slip lanes are the left turning lanes that come off the corners at roundabouts and traffic lights. and the vehicles in these lanes MUST give way.
Maybe the problem is not other drivers Rev, maybe it's you not understanding the difference of slip lanes and zip merging.

I'm guessing you're one of those individuals which I'm talking about.
When there's no direct oncoming traffic, and it's safe to continue into the next lane, what sort of a moron hits the breaks?
I'm pretty sure I made the clear distinction between gaps in the traffic and peak hour, where any right mind person would stop or slow down and make sure it was safe.

I don't know about you, but I don't wait till I get to the end of that "slip lane" to check if it's safe to proceed.

Here..

(a) any vehicle on the road the driver is entering, or turning right at the intersection into the road the driver is entering (except a vehicle making a U-turn at the intersection); and

I hope you realize how long that slip lane is..and how much time drivers have to see if there's any on coming vehicles to judge whether they need to slow down or stop and give way or if they can proceed.
Even as you straighten up, it's called a SIDE VIEW MIRROR.

Nothing wrong with my driving, except a little speeding.
If you want to argue that Adelaide drivers aren't morons, be my guest. You will lose.

You only need look at that section of Tapleys Hill rd on Google Maps streetview(or drive through it) to see how moronic drivers in Adelaide are.
It's signed, keep left unless over taking, yet there's just as many in the right lane as there is in the left. And it's not even peak hour.
Don't try and deny or argue against the point that Adelaide drivers are shit at driving over some technicality with a sign.
Even if there was a "merge" sign there, they'd still fail.

[Nathan]

Nothing wrong with my driving, except a little speeding.

I guess you're one of those individuals you're talking about as well then.

[Aidan]

There's no traffic lights when you are headed west on Sir Don. and turn left onto Tapleys Hill. You merge onto an 80kmh section of road. The only time it becomes difficult to find a gap is in peak hour. People seem to think they need to stop first.

You avoid the traffic lights when you do that, but the intersection has traffic lights which cause the traffic to bunch, which means stopping on the slip lane is frequently the best course of action (and not just in the peaks - the road's quite busy all day). Those same traffic lights do also create big gaps in the traffic, so failure to merge won't delay anyone for long.

The same thing happens when turning left onto Paynhem Rd from OG Rd. You come into the far let lane which merges into the middle lane.

That's similar to Brighton Road from Seacombe Road, so if drivers aren't merging there's a problem

The point is, as with Britania roundabout, Adelaide drivers are bad.
The basics are still the same at Britania.
I've never had any problems going through it..why do others?

Probably because of its bad reputation, which in turn is due to its bad design.

And I live in Westwood, which is full of moronic drivers who pull out of their driver way when you're approaching, then proceed to drive up the street at 30kmh.

It's going to be interesting, probably funny to an extent, seeing how these same morons who struggle with one roundabout, deal with two within such a short distance.[/quite]
They'd probably improve as they'd get twice as much practice!

What could fix problems like this, is making it compulsory that all driving instructors take their students through this roundabout.

Not everyone lives near enough the Britannia Roundabout for this to be practical.

Having found the Christie Downs roundabout unexpectedly difficult when I was learning to drive, I do see the value of including laned roundabouts in driving lessons, but many people don't live anywhere near one.

[rev]

Nothing wrong with my driving, except a little speeding.

I guess you're one of those individuals you're talking about as well then.

I guess I am then.

What could fix problems like this, is making it compulsory that all driving instructors take their students through this roundabout.

Not everyone lives near enough the Britannia Roundabout for this to be practical.

Having found the Christie Downs roundabout unexpectedly difficult when I was learning to drive, I do see the value of including laned roundabouts in driving lessons, but many people don't live anywhere near one.

True. Perhaps the answer is to revamp driver education and make it more comprehensive, rather then driving around your local area with an instructor?
Perhaps driving simulators similar to the ones used for plant equipment in the mining sector should be used?

[Torrens_5022]

I rarely have the need to turn south onto Tapleys Hill rd from Sir Donald, I do go through there many times a day and I stay in the right lane until after the merging is over due to it being chaos at times, the worse driving I saw a woman in a commodore pull straight across from the slip lane right in front of me in the right lane, she was doing about 50kph I was doing about 70 and had to brake hard, actually not the worst that was a truck on the opposite side in the right lane who started to change lanes with a car next to him - the poor car had to go off road - luckily it was the short section with the parking lane and speed past the stupid truck, the truck indicated halfway through this manoeuvre, luckily he was only travelling at 60kph.
The slip lane is too short it should be three lanes until Harbourtown with the slip lane an added lane then it zip merges after the Harbortown lights.

[Waewick]

funnily enough had my first near miss with two cars yesterday.

both went in the wrong lanes (to avoid the traffic) and then veered right instead of turning left as their lane should have.

I'm assuming they were either blissfully unaware of their stupidity or typical wankers trying to avoid traffic and the peril of others.