Over the past few years, we’ve had some creative newfangled intersections built throughout the suburban parts of Madison where there’s room to put in these things. The traffic engineers are especially fond of traffic circles. Drivers here are especially fond of crashing on traffic circles.
This particular traffic circle is one of two along my commute. It’s also one of two funky intersections along the road that crosses my commute at this traffic circle.
The traffic circle is on the left of this pic, and the extra funky intersection that I’m not going to bother trying to explain here is on the right.
I was heading home, going south along Pleasant View Rd, when I noticed some flashing lights. I saw this Honda Civic had spun out and ended up on the curb. I’m not sure what direction they were attempting to go or how they spun, but they ended up with the ass end of their car in the middle of the median and the front of it hanging out into traffic.
Generally, these traffic circles do keep traffic moving pretty well, but I also notice that in winter, a small subset of people just can’t wrap their minds around the idea of a traffic circle and slip, slide and crash into one of the medians, usually (thankfully) without hitting any other cars. Which is more than I can say for the older gentleman in a Toyota Sienna who was driving next to me on my way to work this morning who oozed well into my lane in the circle and I had to slam on my brakes and horn to alert him to my presence. At least no crash happened.
Overall though, I’m actually surprised more people don’t crash on the thing.