Roundabout ways take getting used to

Roundabouts have a lot of qualities that look good on paper; they’re traffic control that forces drivers to slow down without those annoying stoplights or stop signs, and studies have shown they slash the chances of a fatal accident by 90 percent.

VIDEO: Vehicles move through the new roundabouts in east Mesa, and neighbors discuss their pros and cons

INTERACTIVE: Getting around Mesa’s new roundabouts

So they were a relatively easy sell three years ago, when Arizona Department of Transportation officials touted them for the Loop 202’s exits at Brown and McKellips roads in northeast Mesa. But now they’re a half-reality, and people are starting to get scared. All four roundabouts (two on each road) are now open to surface street traffic, but the corresponding segment of the Red Mountain Freeway won’t open for another year, so for now they’re traffic islands on steroids and without a turn bay. Some drivers are confused or dismayed by these roundabouts while they’re still in this “training wheels” phase, as Daryl James reported in the July 7 Tribune. ADOT spokesman Doug Nintzel told James the state’s education efforts will focus on getting drivers to slow down for the roundabouts, where the posted speed limit is 25 mph. He told us the department is putting the finishing touches on an instructional video and brochure that will be distributed via Channel 11, and to community groups and the like.

ADOT’s probably going to have an uphill drive.

It’s true the rules on how to get around a roundabout-controlled intersection aren’t the stuff of rocket science: Slow down, yield if there’s someone already in the circle, go ahead if there isn’t. But they just look wrong, these bulbous junctions which send drivers through an arbitrary curve, in a city and region flat enough to never demand much creativity or ingenuity from its street engineers.

We’re just not used to taking the roundabout way, or not being exactly sure which exit will actually send us in the right direction. Maybe it’s cost us in terms of having a visually interesting environment, but we expect those clean 90-degree turns, particularly on major streets. How’d you do last time you drove on Rittenhouse Road, or Grand Avenue in the West Valley?

Roundabouts probably are a good idea, and not just on paper. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety statistics that Nintzel cites are certainly convincing. Besides coming close to eliminating fatal collisions, they’ve been found to reduce total accidents by 30 percent and those causing injury by 70 percent.

We just hope we don’t see a spike in road rage incidents involving people who’ve figured them out, or at least think they have, and those who don’t.