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Sometimes the squeaky Wheel gets the grease!

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Brooklands said:
Walt,
Back in 1976 I appreciated that the UK roundabouts let me do several laps while my map reader was able to figure out which exit we needed. I sometimes went around 3 or 4 times, but then was able to get to the proper road to continue our journey.
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Mrs JP & I went to England in 2016. We rented a car at Birmingham Airport and used her GPS to go to our first night's stay. This was an hour and a half away and took us through endless roundabouts and 2 1/2 hours to actually get there. We never really sussed out why though we did buy a map book later when we had to get to our hotel and the bridge was out and the map app kept bringing us back to the )$%#! bridge. Fast forward to the end of our time when we had to return the car with a full tank of gas - we spent easily 45 minutes circling the airport, unable to get onto the road which had the gas station (which we could see but not get to). Aftre 45 minutes we realized that the problem was that Mrs JP's phone had defaulted to Apple Maps instead of Google Maps - which were so much less accurate. It seems that they still exist but back them they were terrible (at least in England) and I suspect also explained the multiple roundabout adventures on day 1. :D
 
We have many roundabout where I live now and I much prefer them to regular intersections. the biggest problem are the folks new to them or the folks that only spend part of the year and forget the rules when they first return.
My introduction to roundabouts was the AHCA club UK2K trip to Englan where we shipped our cars over and ran around England, Scotland and Wales for 3 weeks. The great thing about the 'trip tick' they gave us was for roundabouts they said we always entered at the 6 o'clock position and then gave the clock position of the exit road.
The only time that didn't really work was in Bath, I think, where many roads come in and each new road entering added a new lane. I ended up up in the center when I was suppose to exit! Switching lanes isn't any fun in busy roundabouts.
 
Back when I was young on the East Coast, they were called Traffic Circles. The first time I heard them called Roundabouts was in Bermuda in the 60s.
 
PAUL161 said:
Back when I was young on the East Coast, they were called Traffic Circles. The first time I heard them called Roundabouts was in Bermuda in the 60s.
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ACCORDING TO AI:
"Roundabouts are smaller, modern, high-capacity, and low-speed (<30mph) intersections with yield signs for entering traffic and no lane changes inside. Traffic circles and rotaries are larger, often older, high-speed, and can have signals or stop signs, with traffic sometimes required to yield to entering vehicles."
 
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