Modern Vespa

And the term, "Michigan turn" is a misnomer. Those turns only exist on boulevards which aren't uncommon in many states.

Most intersections in Michigan are as normal as eveyywhere else. The tern "Michigan Left Turn" stuck because - apparently - Michigan was an early adopter.

I have your Christmas T-shirt on order.
Please just PM me your size again...

So you can probably guess where I got pulled over.

That was my guess, yes.

We have gotten a bunch of median U-turns along Grant Rd in Tucson. Seems the city is a real fan of Michigan turns with more traffic lights and less space .

https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/provencountermeasures/reduced_left.cfm

The numpties should have put roundabouts in instead.

Agreed.

What's the logic behind outlawing U-turns?

You're looking for logic? Not a place to find very much, I'd have thought.

Allows them to pull over Michiganders when they come to watch the big game. OSU v Michigan State is one of the big rivalries in the Midwest.

My issue is that there's not a sign on the intersection that says U-turns are illegal. You're just supposed to know that's how they do things in Columbus.

Such a hard sell with the locals in some places in the US. A couple of cities here in Indiana have them and they work as advertised but then you have people in neighboring towns, like mine, who avoid those cities simply because they have roundabouts and apparently don't know, and don't want to know, how to work them.

Our small tourist town has two great locations for removing traffic lights and installing roundabouts to alleviate the weekend and seasonal influx of tourist traffic backups. It was proposed at a recent town hall and from the reaction you would think they were proposing taking the first born from each home.

I'd like to address my fellow Americans here. Canadians, Australians, Kiwis, Europeans and Brits (see what I did there?) please look away now.

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I take umbrage good sir, while I am most definitely hillbilly and petty, I am most certainly not narrow minded!

paint me as a disgusting philistine all you wish, but I find a round about to be quite the treat!

But in fairness, once you leave California, Americans seem to have trouble figuring out what a Yield sign means, whenever encountered. In most of the South, it seems to mean slam on your brakes at the end of the onramp and look back over your shoulder until it's clear enough that you and everyone you've ever met has time to merge. So the yield sign on roundabouts must mean stop until there is nobody even near the roundabout, then ease out into it as slow as possible and try to figure out how to exit.

Yeah and they also seem to forget that they have a vehicle equipped with a turn indicator which is helpful when using a roundabout...or any situation requiring a lane change or change of direction.

Carmel, Indiana has the correct idea. Get rid of traffic lights and put in roundabouts. They reduce traffic jams, accidents, reduce the severity of the ones that do occur, and they reduce fuel waste.

I've never lived anywhere that made a blanket restriction on making U-turns or turning on a red light. Sure, there are occasionally signs forbidding these things in certain places.

Interesting side note. I saw the other day that in the Netherlands, there were no STOP signs until the Nazis invaded. And that Paris had only one STOP sign. But people kept stealing it, so they gave up and didn't replace it anymore. You all can fact check me if you like, I know someone will. It's an online forum after all.

I don't think the South has a monopoly on this behavior. I've seen it elsewhere as well.

On Interstates, most people will not accelerate until AFTER they merge. Saw this repeatedly on a cross country trip last year. These drivers will merge at whatever speed they see fit, and the traffic that is already on the Interstate has to adjust for THEM. That's not how it is supposed to work. Merging traffic is supposed to match the speed of the traffic already on the interstate.

Frankly, it's too easy to get a driver's license in this country. States are increasing the time between renewals. Arizona doesn't have an actual renewal. What they should be doing is making the test more difficult to pass and then making people take the entire test every few years, to make sure that they actually remember the rules of the road.

It's ridiculously easy to get a driver's license in the US, any state.

I get so pissed when I'm trying to build up to 70 MPH and the dipstick ahead of me wants to merge into 65 MPH traffic at 50 MPH.

They've started doing this in town here in GR. I totally get the concept of roundabouts, but I really question their implementation. Suddenly, an intersection that was clearly marked stop in one direction (usually the direction of least traffic) is now a 4-way go with a bump in the middle to swerve around.

You're going a bit fast if you have to swerve...

The whole point is to keep traffic in motion if at all possible, but also to curb excessive speeds.


The recent VCdM trip to the south of France converted the few sceptics in the group into fervent roundabout evangelists.

But as a pedestrian or a bicyclist these things are useless or will scare the kittens out of you: you never have the right of way to cross since traffic is always moving!

How ironic when many treat stop signs as yield