A UK motoring journalist reviewed the latest updated Tesla Model 3.
His description of the indicators left the reader understanding why the car is unusable bordering on dangerous on UK roads. Rather than try to précis it, here’s the link, because the author describes it so well.
(But it’s behind The Sunday Times paywall - if anyone wants me to upload or DM them a scan of the article, I have one, but it’s a largish file.)
Basically, though - roundabouts. For US readers unfamiliar with these, our Highway Code says that one indicates left when on a roundabout and approaching the exit one will be leaving the roundabout on. This is not safely possible in a Tesla Model 3. Also an issue at angled junctions.
I could regale you with a story about being picked up by a US tow truck guy after a crash and his thoughtful reaction to the concept of roundabouts and the reason for the paucity of them in the USA - it was most revealing about US cultural attitudes. (A few of you may have read about it when I posted it at TOP many years ago.) But we do have rather a lot of roundabouts here in the UK. Lone Skum seems unaware of their use globally outside the USA, as the article makes clear.
You mean yours comply with 3.142 and ours are 22/7?
Seriously, though, it may raise another issue. Which side of the steering wheel are these indicator buttons and does turning clockwise or anti-clockwise make them more or less accessible (= chaseable around the wheel as it is being turned) when trying to indicate mid-manoeuvre?
Was the fact that some places do not drive on the right ever any part of the design considerations when this daft design was settled upon? (I don’t know whether it makes any difference - perhaps it does not - but I bet any idea that it might need to be considered never entered their tiny little brains.)
Depends on where you live in the US. We have quite a few roundabouts in southeast Michigan. It’s obvious by their shite approach to such things that Ohio and Indiana have far fewer or possibly no roundabouts.
A couple Saturdays ago, I found one of these abominable 8-bit Priuses about 6" off my rear bumper while I was going about 75 MPH. Until it wasn’t - it passed 3 cars using the right hand lane and abruptly cut back into the left lane where there wasn’t actually enough room for it, causing the rest of us to slam on our brakes. A sample of one, sure, but that driver is a complete asshole.
Oregon has been aggressively replacing 4-way stops (many drivers have no idea how they work) with roundabouts. Some people still don’t know how they work, but their mistakes tend toward safer errors; particularly coming to a complete stop at the entrance of an empty roundabout. But at least that’s safer than running a stop sign.
I can’t think of any roundabouts in the US large enough to warrant signaling. Two lanes tend to be the max. We also use a lot of channelization to reduce idiocy. Below is what used to be the most lethal intersection in my county. Since the roundabout was completed, crashes pretty much stopped. Only took two families of 4 dying in separate crashes only a couple months apart to get safety improvements here.
What does the size of the roundabout have to do with signalling? You indicate that you are about to leave the roundabout so that the person entering it in front of you knows it is safe to do so without having to stop unnecessarily and disrupting the flow. That applies to all sizes of roundabouts and assholes that don’t indicate exist everywhere, even in countries that have had them forever.
This is the basic tenet of roundabouts. Without signalling they don’t work, as anyone entering has to stop as if it were a normal intersection.
And typical two-lane roundabouts especially need signalling while on the roundabout, as one will often be changing lanes while on the roundabout, to position oneself for the appropriate exit. (Hard to do while the steering wheel is turned and the buttons have moved, if in a Tesla.)
The above is not really a typical roundabout. It could be an intersection where traffic is segregated, but in this case it is not, just ‘channeled’. It is more of a T-junction turned into such an intersection. There are only two exits so anyone approaching it from a any direction simply needs to get in and stay in one or other lanes and yield if traffic is coming from the left. No signalling required as each lane only goes to one exit.
Typical roundabouts replace 4-way (or 5-way or 6-way) intersections that would otherwise have to be entirely segregated or have traffic lights. Many traffic lights remain in UK simply because there is not room for a roundabout. And we even have traffic lights on large roundabouts to smooth the flow of traffic from all directions where traffic to/from one direction would otherwise risk preventing others on other entrances to the roundabout ever getting on to it. And some roundabouts have 3 or 4 lanes on them, increasing the need for clear signalling. (in some respects they are more like spirals, in that the lane markings are such that they have that effect in guiding traffic around them.)
The only ‘in practice’ element of the diagram linked to above that is not shown is that the green car in many cases can be in the right hand lane approaching the roundabout and go straight on, where the exit has two lanes. This is very common. We have roundabouts where this is the case and the exit merges immediately into one lane, as well.
And now I fear we may descend into a roundabout rabbit-hole!
I seem to recall a long-ago thread in the same vein at TOP.
ETA I found my post in the lengthier thread at TOP re roundabouts and how they are used:
For small roundabouts, you would need to signal before you entered to effectively communicate where you are exiting, and there are enough people who mistakenly signal to ENTER the roundabout that it would trigger drivers to enter when the signaler intends to continue around. It’s safer here to assume that a vehicle in the roundabout will continue rather than exit.
That’s not how our multilane roundabouts are constructed. You select your exit point by the lane you enter in. Rightmost lane for early exit, leftmost lane for late exit. These aren’t the large roundabouts you have in the UK. Most US roundabouts fit in the same space as a regular intersection.
If you are changing lanes within the roundabout, you’re doing it wrong.
That assumes a constant flow of traffic at each entrance. That is rarely the case for US roundabouts. Even the ones that do have constant traffic are often structured such that drivers taking the first exit have a protected turn and can just go as long traffic on the destination road isn’t backed up. That at least somewhat improves flow relative to a standard intersection.
For any UK denizens who don’t mind a flutter, and like weird old shitboxes might like this:
They hold weekly raffles for weird old hoopties. I haven’t bought in for a bit, cos I sulked at not winning the 3-litre Orange Cortina, but I’m v. tempted by the Nissan they’ve got up on Dec 22nd…
Yes, yield to cars coming around on the roundabout about to cross your entrance, before you enter.
That has no bearing on the need to change lanes (or not) once having entered the roundabout and navigating around it towards your chosen exit.
It seems unlikely to us Euro types that every US roundabout allows you to enter and leave a roundabout in the same lane, but if that’s the case, so be it.
It does somewhat limit the flexibility and utility of roundabouts in general, though, in being able to manage traffic through a wide variety of types of junctions and intersections between very different types of roads (e.g. with different numbers of lanes) .
And does relate, a bit, to what that US tow truck guy reckoned was the reason roundabouts would not generally work in the US. (This was S.Carolina, in the late 1990s, if that has any bearing on it.) His basic thesis was that US drivers felt they had the freedom of the road and they needed to be told very directly to do things, or would do whatever they liked unless something was mandatory - hence traffic lights at crossroads, otherwise everyone would just pile through. (I bet he was fun at 4-way stops.) His belief was that US drivers would just all pile through roundabouts. The idea that all US roundabouts only ever allow drivers to enter and leave a roundabout in the same lane kind of aligns with that view - don’t give them choices that involve allowing other drivers to interact with them or it may end badly.
Hey-ho. I’m indicating to leave at the next exit, but could still go all the way round again, if someone carves me up from the inside. (It happens, but we are all mostly attuned to the possibility and can see them coming a mile off.)
You could just listen to us when we say that’s not how our traffic circles are structured , or you can just continue to assume you magically know more about it sight unseen than our lived experience.
But at least that’s safer than running a stop sign.
(It happens, but we are all mostly attuned to the possibility and can see them coming a mile off.)