Roundabouts, traffic circles, rotaries. Whatever you call them, most people on God’s green earth seem to know how they work. But most people don’t live in Connecticut, where Nutmeggers have been struggling to understand a new roundabout installed in the town of West Hartford. Rather than doing the only traffic action that makes sense with the arrangement of the road — following it to the right, around the roundabout, and exiting on the road of their choice — they’ve instead forgotten how to drive completely.Â
Connecticut drivers are hopping curbs, driving the wrong way, and generally just becoming absolute menaces. NBC Connecticut even captured a Volkswagen treating the new roundabout as a straight road, driving directly over the center of the decorative concrete median. True, having no curb in the middle of a roundabout is a bit unusual — it was reportedly done to assist busses and large trucks that still need to make use of the intersection — but the center here is still pretty clearly not part of the road. The roundabout now even has orange barrels to ensure residents really get it.Â
They should know better
As an expat from Connecticut myself, I can attest that folks from the state are generally decent drivers — not as unpredictable and self-interested as Massholes, but slower and less determined than New Yorkers. They’re pretty okay, all things considered, but it seems that goes right out the window when they’re faced with the horror of “a circle, but on the ground and for cars.” Truly horrifying stuff, just in time for Halloween.
Roundabouts shouldn’t be difficult to understand, even for drivers who’ve never had to face one before. They’re a better way to operate many intersections, and they keep traffic moving along — assuming that traffic understands what it is they’re actually doing. Hopefully, with time and experience, those Nutmeggers will learn how to drive. After all, the rest of us are still stuck sharing the roads with them. They better know what they’re doing when they enter our states, too.Â
