The traffic circle on the east side of Puerto Plata as you come in from Sosua. Vehicles entering the traffic circle have priority over vehicles already in the traffic circle – how is that supposed to work? They stopped building these in the US in the 1950’s!
So you force your way onto the circle, cutting across cars that look like they should have right of way, then you drive round. When you want to come off, you have to stop and look behind you and to the right at an angle your mirrors can’t reach, and neither can your neck. Watch out for those motos entering the circle at full speed, oh, you can’t see them? Tough!
In fact last week, there was a traffic cop standing in the middle of the road having to direct traffic, ‘cos everyone was getting so confused.
Is it possible to design a worse system?
Maybe they should try this method with merry-go-rounds at the fairground? Kids getting onto the ride have priority. Once you’re on the ride, you don’t, so the ride (and everybody on it) has to stop every time a kid saunters up and may or may not want to jump on.
A roundabout would have been much better. Vehicles entering the roundabout have to give way until there is a space on the roundabout, at which point they have perfect and clear visibility to look at oncoming traffic. Once on the roundabout, they drive round and leave at the required exit. It’s really easy and there are thousands of them in Europe and around the Worlds that have been proven to work.
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Can you digg it?
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