Rotaries, Roundabouts, Traffic Circles. Confused?

Traffic circles, rotaries and roundabouts.  Is there a difference?  Does the distinction blur as drivers zoom into them regardless of any rules?

Traffic circles designed decades ago when there was far less traffic strain to handle heavy traffic that exist now.  Newer roundabouts sometimes surprise drivers who scratch their heads wondering why traffic engineers continue to inject these into new construction.  Increasing traffic raises the pressure on roadways, leading to alarming bad driving trends.  So, traffic circles or whatever one calls them, see a growing number of motor vehicle accidents as time goes on.

One major media outlet in Boston featured the top ten “Circles of Death” in and around the Greater Boston area.  In our podcast we look at the actual rules and the sources for those rules.  In New England the rules of the road requiring traffic approaching rotaries to yield to traffic already in the rotary.

New Jersey, on the other hand, has it’s own, different rules which we source and point out.

But make no mistake, Massachusetts, New Hampshire an the other New England states require all traffic coming to a traffic circle, rotary or roundabout to yield to vehicles already in the circle.

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