xkcd #2842: Inspiraling Roundabout
xkcd #2842: Inspiraling Roundabout
Alt text:
Look, I just think we need to stop coddling those hedonistic roundabout hogs who get into the inner lane and circle for hours, wasting valuable capacity.
51 comments
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Study reports that, surprisingly, the inspiraling roundabout rated the same score as the standard roundabout in the United States for their usability and user comprehension metrics. This is mostly due to the remarkably low score of the standard roundabout.
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We don't need those hedonistic European roundamacircles.
In my day we just T-boned each other at high speeds, and we enjoyed it!
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lol Americans dumb amiright? Can’t use roundabout
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As a Frenchman now living in the US. Omg people cannot compute roundabouts it’s madness. There’s one at my doctor’s office and every time I go, someone is taking it backwards it’s madness!
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I'm american and work right next to a roundabout. It gets a pretty low amount of traffic but I still see people stop in the middle or go around backwards all the time.
That said, I see drivers doing the stupidest things pretty much everywhere, so the roundabout isn't exactly making things worse.
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For some reason I'm just looking at this, and thinking of far-future people digging up ANY roads with lines or on/off ramps or cloverleafs, scratching their heads, and going:
"It must've been used for religious purposes."
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Wanna really confuse them?
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Carmel
This explains the entire image
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"It must've been used for religious purposes."
Hehehe...
Regarding the question whether future humans are going to be wiser than we are, I see 4 possiblities:
- They are wiser
- They are less wise
- They are exactly the same (most likely)
- They don't care
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Human nature does not change very much over time. When I was younger I thought the future was going to be awesome because then, people like me would be in power. Now there are many politicians, celebrities, activists, journalists, other people more powerful than me who are the same age as me or even younger; they are pretty much the same as the ones who are older than me.
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i mean wisdom is something you gain from experience so presumably later generations are always going to be wiser provided they study the past, that's kinda how we got to where we are
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When Junji Ito is your traffic planner
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Uzumaki ruined spirals forever (or made them better, depending on who you ask)
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this is my lane, it was made for me!
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BMW drivers to the whole street
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It will deadlock in the center because the car lanes are used for two directions. Unless you upgrade those unidirectional lanes into bi-directional pairs of lanes.
And it will still deadlock, so you have to put a round-robin semaphore in the middle.
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Simpler solution, just add a bottomless pit or small singularity in the middle to absorb excess traffic.
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Sorry I'm late for work, I got sucked into a black hole again. No, I didn't take a picture of the event horizon, you should just take my word for it. I wouldn't even be late if it weren't for the time dilation.
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An infinite spiral could easily solve these problems.
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No one should reach the center. The lines are dotted. If anyone ends up in the center they deserve a deadlock.
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The center should put you on an out-spiraling bridge that feeds traffic back into the outermost lane. Then even the most indecisive drivers are accommodated. Or just a deep pit of punishment.
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We have a small traffic circle near us, across from an outdoor restaurant. One day I was eating there and saw this dude start circling it endlessly until the police happened to show up, then he took off.
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its not like people follow the lanes in a roundabout anyway.
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That depends on which country you're driving in
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First time I have to disagree with xkcd. It's very much not navigable, with exception of turning right.
Going left or back is impossible as you will be facing counterflow and not able to turn in tight spaces.
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The lines are dotted. You can cross dotted lines. If you do cross a dotted line, please check your mirrors, or you might run into the point of the comic.
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i think it should spiral outwards instead, that way if you need to take the third exit, you switch to the third lane and simply follow it to your exit
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Agreed. If you're in the outside lane you must exit.
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It doesn't really solve the problem of having a road junction - that's still in the center and cars even come at worse angles than before- it just adds fluff around it.
On the other hand, it would probably turn into a tourist attraction and unique experience.
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You're not supposed to ever get to the middle. It's "technically navigable" because you can lane-shift your way out.
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There's also simply no way of getting out once you're inside. It doesn't work even if it was used by just one car.
You'd have to drive the wrong way in a one-way street.
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The joke is that you have to lane-shift to get out, the way you have to in most large roundabouts already.
Something people not used to roundabouts seem afraid to do, hence this is a design that "doesn't coddle them" because if they don't lane-shift, they end up in the middle.
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You uh, are allowed to change lanes.
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Randall in a road trip right now?
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I'm too street illiterate to know of this is going clockwise or counterclockwise. It makes more sense spiraling out.
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Who needs lane markings anyway :-)
51 comments