Ode to the Roundabout

Do you think there were ever roundabouts in St. Louis, Missouri? I keep seeing a sign on a road near my house that ominously warns, “Roundabout ahead!” but I have never seen it. I’m looking for it, because I miss the roundabouts of Belgium. Pretty much every time two (or three or nine...) roads meet there, you’ll get a roundabout. They’re actually very efficient and virtually eliminate the need for traffic lights.

If you’ve never driven in one, I can tell you that it’s a bit intimidating at first. You see, as you enter the roundabout, you have to yield to the folks who are already in it. In Belgium, these traffic circles are sometimes three or four lanes wide so, while you’re patiently waiting for a break in the traffic, the pros will inch impatiently around you in a car about the size of the one your son built last night with his Lego blocks, and whip right across all the lanes to some tiny space that was not occupied in the middle lane. That middle lane means you’re planning to go around at least past the next exit. But, it could mean that they’ll whip right back across the three lanes to exit at the subsequent one!

My marriage almost ended on a roundabout. I hadn’t been married long. In fact, it was our honeymoon. We were vacationing in France and we had rented a car to drive from Paris to the landing beaches on the north coast. Well, now that I think about it, the marriage was a bit shaky after driving through Paris together in a rented car with five-speed standard transmission, which my new husband swore he could drive. There are no roundabouts in Paris but the minute you’re beyond one of the ancient “portes” of the city, boom, you hit one. As my husband tore through roundabout after roundabout with what appeared to be either a ton of confidence or a whole load of stupid, I realized that he thought that he had "the priority".

You see, in France, as in Belgium, the roads leading to the roundabouts all say, “You do not have the priority”. In similar circumstances anywhere in North America where two roads merge, there is just an upside down white triangle that says, “YIELD”. And, guess what? People do. It’s not hard. You see the sign and you want to live, so you slow down or stop and wait your turn.

Ahhh, now we come to the crux of it! There is a psychological difference between telling someone to yield and telling them they don’t have priority. Yield means give up. Yield means the other guy goes first. That doesn’t go over big everywhere. If you’ve ever skied in Europe, you’ll laugh remembering the line-ups, which are sheer chaos! If a skier spots so much as a hair’s-width of a space in front of you or beside you, they experience an all-consuming need to occupy it. They can’t help it. They’ll abandon friends and family, slinking ahead in the middle of conversations to claim the spot that was yielded or given up.

Maybe there’s a secret International Society for Sign Conformity, where designers talk about the need to coddle their fellow countrymen by acknowledging their priority – their right-of-way – everywhere else in life, except in one tiny little instance: the roundabout. You think they’re ignoring the signs, because of the confidence with which Europeans enter and exit these things. But, no, there’s an art to it! There is the gearing down and the glance to the left to gauge the exact moment to jump into it without actually stopping.

Now, if you’re a pedestrian ... good luck. It’s pretty much impossible to cross these rings-o’-death, as my friend Debbie called her favourite roundabout, the four-lane, seven-armed ring at Montgomery in Brussels. At least some of the big ones have pedestrian crossings underneath, but not Montgomery. Oh no, Montgomery has a six-lane highway speeding under it!

Still, pedestrian risks aside, I do love how quickly they move traffic. In St. Louis, there are so many traffic lights; sometimes they’re only a couple of hundred yards away from each other. So, I thought I’d write an Ode to Roundabouts (yes, I probably need to get a job).

Roundabout, roundabout,
How do I love thee!
You funnel us in, and
Right back out!
You pop up at every crossing,
But keep traffic moving in a rush.
You have no mercy
For drivers with slow nav’ systems,
Or rotten senses of direction!
You spin us around, and
Spit us back out,
On one of many octopus arms,
That lead to towns and trains and tall castles.
Roundabout! Roundabout!
How do I miss thee!