Roundabouts & drunk driving: A new defense against impaired drivers?
A note from local businesswoman and activist (Citizens for a Safe Wisconsin, Inc.) Shari Hanneman prompted this thought:
Could the argument be made that encountering periodic roundabouts provides an IMPEDIMENT for drunk drivers that stops them from getting too far and eventually venturing into residential subdivisions ala the incredibly tragic Buckhorn situation in Franklin?
Consider this: I'm not certain of Eddie Lynn Keck's exact route the night he killed two people with his vehicle after being overserved, but it's a pretty safe bet that the WIIIIIDE and fast 27th street or Ryan Road did nothing to impede him; he was on autopilot for that portion of the drive. He could very well have blown a few red lights without stopping his progress.
I'm willing to bet that a series of roundabouts might have caused him to run up a curb or sideswipe someone non-lethally rather than allow him to continue unabated into a subdivision where the tragedy occurred.
Food for thought. Roundabouts for 27th street are on the Franklin Economic Development Commission's agenda for this coming Monday.
From the column Circular Logic Wins Out- Car And Driver:
It occurred to me that these five consecutive Michigan roundabouts might comprise a better drunk-driving exam than any count-backward-and-touch-your-nose routine. It was the first quintuple roundabout I'd ever encountered and, as I later learned, Roundabouts No. 1 and No. 2 hold the distinction of being the first in the country intended to act as a single system. A tourist destination.
I immediately drove to see local police chief Robert Brookins. I said, "Hi, I'm a reporter, and I want to ask..."
"About the roundabouts?" he interrupted. And off he went.
"You should have seen it before," the chief said. "With stoplights and stop signs, the traffic would back up along the exits and onto the freeway. You could wait through three or four stoplight cycles. But now the longest delay I've observed is about 20 seconds. I know it looks complex, but it flows 17-to-20-percent-more traffic and does so at faster average speeds."
Brookins had been monitoring the roundabouts for less than a year but already possessed compelling statistics. "We've had 16 accidents in the big roundabout," he said. "One crash in the middle roundabout. And six in the eastern one. All were minor, mostly sideswipes, 'cause the speeds are so slow. Prior to the roundabouts, you'd get guys blowing the lights, and there'd be high-speed broadsides that were really bad."
Then the chief directed me to Mike Goryl, a soft-spoken county traffic engineer who helped design this crop of circles. Goryl explained that the center islands aren't perfectly round but resemble the agitator in a washing machine, flinging traffic away from the hurricane's eye and toward an exit — with no static cling. All the roundabouts are off-camber, too, he said, mostly to drain water but also to reduce cornering speeds. "Even if you follow what we call the 'fastest path,'" he said, "you'd voluntarily drive at about 25 mph."
In the coming years, Goryl predicts, Americans will become accustomed to such systems. "It's a really efficient way of flowing dense traffic," he says. "People complain at first, but what they don't realize is they're always moving, rather than stopped dead at a light."
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