America's most confusing traffic signs

[Incandenza]

http://jalopnik.com/5044869/americas-10-most-confusing-traffic-signs

I had never heard of a "Michigan left" before.

This one from DC makes no sense:



The top line should be 9:30am, right?

[WOM]

America's most confusing traffic signs

I had never heard of a "Michigan left" before.

When we flew out of Detroit last March, the woman at the hotel was trying to give me directions to the Park 'n Fly. She had to explain three times that I'd turn right at the intersection and then do an immediate U-turn to head in the direction I really wanted to travel. Finally she was like "Just remember what I'm telling you, and then trust me." It was fucked, but it seems to work alright.

[Incandenza]

America's most confusing traffic signs

Why don't they allow left turns to begin with? Seems like it would add a few miles driven every year.

[Reed John]

America's most confusing traffic signs

Confusion Corner, Williamsburg, VA. Not a single sign, but a cacophany of signs.

You have to hear it explained to get the gist.

[DCI Harry Batt]

America's most confusing traffic signs

Bridge freezes before road

[Reed John]

America's most confusing traffic signs

Why is that confusing?

[DCI Harry Batt]

America's most confusing traffic signs

hehe

It's not so much confusing as gibberish.

[Femme Folle]

America's most confusing traffic signs

There are a lot of divided roadways around here, so we're used to the turn-right-to-go-left thing. Sometimes you have to go a bit out of your way to get to the one nearest where you want to go, but overall, I think it's the best way to handle the traffic. Otherwise, you'd have cars backed up (or accidents caused) by people trying to make a left turn across two or three lanes of heavy traffic.

I've never heard them called 'Michigan left turns' though.

[Reed John]

America's most confusing traffic signs

That Michigan Turn article on wiki is misleading. It's hardly "uncommon" in the rest of the country. I do that maneuver almost every day, sometimes illegally.

I'm on one side of Rockville Pike or Connecticut Avenue or Wisconsin Avenue, I want to go left, but I can't because there's a big concrete thingy in the middle of the road, so I go right, move to the next gap in the concrete thingy, look to make sure I've got a chance, turn hard left and gun it. I try to pick a spot where there isn't a "No U-Turns" sign, but if there is, but there's not much traffic and no cop around, I'll do it anyway.

Granted, i'm not aware of anywhere around here where there's extra space added to the side of the road to allow big trucks to pull that maneuver. That might be unique to Michigan.

I like that sign in LA that allows people to make their own judgement as to what constitutes "light traffic." So trusting. So democratic.

[Incandenza]

America's most confusing traffic signs

Reed of the Valley People wrote:

I like that sign in LA that allows people to make their own judgement as to what constitutes "light traffic." So trusting. So democratic.

I've seen photos of that sign before. You can tell it's not an official DOT sign, though--it's something a business or some parking lot had made to put up from leaving their premises.

[Femme Folle]

America's most confusing traffic signs

I just looked at the picture of the Michigan Left, and Inca is correct; it makes no sense whatsoever.

What I was thinking of is different. Ours is more of a jug handle kind of interchange.

[ursus arctos]

America's most confusing traffic signs

The jug handle things they have in New Jersey and Pennsylvania actually work quite well.

[Wyatt Earp]

America's most confusing traffic signs

Translation for limeys?

[ursus arctos]

America's most confusing traffic signs

These things.

[Wyatt Earp]

America's most confusing traffic signs

Thanks.

Does anyone know what US highway designers have against roundabouts? Isn't there evidence that they improve safety quite dramatically?

[ursus arctos]

America's most confusing traffic signs

They are actually reasonably common in the Northeast (especially in Massachusetts, where they are called "rotaries" and New Jersey, where they are called "traffic circles"), but the sense that I have is that they were considered antiquated at least by WWII, perhaps because so much of the new construction in the post-war period was essentially in "greefield" areas where space was not an issue (or in areas where grids were the norm).

Current generations of US drivers who aren't from a roundabout-friendly area tend to find them bewildering, but I think that is more a question of experience than anything else.

Interestingly enough, on our recent trip to Slovenija we noted the use of both roundabouts and jughandle turns in new construction (not in the same place, of course).

[Reed John]

America's most confusing traffic signs

We have a few rotary/roundabout/circles here. They were (more or less) designed into the orginal plan for DC. I'm most familiar with the one on Connecticut Avenue in Chevy Chase. I don't think that one improves safety. Drivers make a lot of erratic lane changes on that like it's the final lap of the goddamned Daytona 500.

[Wyatt Earp]

America's most confusing traffic signs

A rotary or circle isn't the same thing as a modern roundabout, though, apparently.

Here.

[ursus arctos]

America's most confusing traffic signs

"Modern roundabouts are much smaller than older traffic circles and rotaries, and roundabouts require vehicles to negotiate a sharper curve to enter. These differences make travel speeds in roundabouts slower than speeds in traffic circles and rotaries. Because of the higher speeds in older circles and rotaries, many were equipped with traffic signals or stop signs to help reduce potential crashes. In addition, some older traffic circles and rotaries operated according to the traditional "yield-to-the-right" rule, with circulating traffic yielding to entering traffic."

Hmmm, those aren't huge differences, are they?

[Wyatt Earp]

America's most confusing traffic signs

The last one is an enormous difference, I'd say. The others seem more subtle, but (the article claims) crucial to the safety issue.

[ursus arctos]

America's most confusing traffic signs

Yeah, the last one is just bizarre, but I honestly can't recall every having seen one like that.

[Wyatt Earp]

America's most confusing traffic signs

It used to be the norm in France, and then they gradually started phasing in (which if you think about it, is a stupid way to do it) the British system of giving way as you enter the roundabout. Now I think virtually all roundabouts in France have gone over. This is why you still see big signs as you approach French roundabouts, shouting VOUS N'AVEZ PAS LA PRIORITÉ at you.

[Femme Folle]

America's most confusing traffic signs

Wyatt Earp wrote:

A rotary or circle isn't the same thing as a modern roundabout, though, apparently.

Here.

It's all swings and roundabouts.

[jason voorhees]

America's most confusing traffic signs

Hopefully they changed it since I was there in '91, but the fact that Los Angeles only had numbers on their exits - without saying what part of town it was, was the worst thing I've ever seen.

Exit 87 is Compton ? Exit 89 is East LA ? Exit 91 is Dodger Stadium ? Exit 82 is Beverly Hills ? Damned if I know.

If Washington DC was designed according to Freemason tenements, it's safe to say Freemasons like rat traps, labyrinths, and confusing-ass driving conditions that make no fucking sense. Same goes for Boston.

Hmmm, maybe that's why those cities are some of my most hated. Design a city that makes no fucking sense, and you're on my shitlist.

[Incandenza]

America's most confusing traffic signs

In Long Beach, we have the Traffic Circle, a dreaded spot where Lakewood Blvd meets PCH and Los Coyotes Diagonal. Those are all big streets, and the road within the circle is about four lanes wide, and people just don't get it. Thankfully if you're going south on Lakewood to turn right onto PCH, there's a dedicated lane so you don't have to get in it. There are signs up to use turn signals, but no one really does, and they still go at about the same speed.

The Traffic Circle is also the reason I have a new car. In 2006, I was driving through there in my 1993 Carolla, the only car I had ever owned.



Looking at the image above, I was coming north on PCH to turn north onto Lakewood Blvd--so from the spoke coming from the bottom of the picture, and out the one heading straight up at the top of the photo. I stayed off to the right, and immediately after I passed the first exit (which is Los Coyotes), I put on my right turn signal. A girl coming from Los Coyotes turned out in front of me, and I honked and braked. She turned slightly, so that she was in effect going straight, while I was turning right and heading at her. I wasn't able to brake on time, because she slammed on her brakes so that she stopped right in front of me. We scraped against each other--thankfully I didn't hit her car straight on on her side. Turns out she was a student at the high school I went to, and she was driving her aunt's car. She denied she was at fault (even though there are yield signs clearly posted), but her insurance company gave up and admitted I was at no fault in the crash. My car wasn't badly damaged, but it wasn't worth all that much to begin with, and I didn't want to drive around with a big scrape and dent on my car, so I got a new car.

My other Traffic Circle story--some friends in high school stole one of their friends' car, a beat up Gremlin, and took it for a joy ride as a joke one night while he was sleeping. They found a giant tumbleweed, tied it to the top of his car, and drove it onto the center of the lawn in the middle of the Traffic Circle and left it there. They then called him at about 5am, one of them said he was a police officer, and demanded that he come get his car from the center of the Traffic Circle.

Santa Monica and some other cities have put in small roundabouts as traffic-slowing methods. This one here is on a well-traveled street, but one that's still small, so it works well and there's only one lane in the circle, which works well, I think (trivia--Bertolt Brecht lived just down the street from there, and Frank Gehry's house is a few blocks away). I've seen cars drive through there without slowing down, and they've gone up on two wheels in the center. Some people are morons, no matter what.