Pete Buttigieg should be the “Roundabout President”
As a millennial mayor of South Bend, Indiana, it’s not a surprise that Pete Buttigieg has embraced roundabouts to help improve his city. Carmel, a city to the south just outside Indianapolis has the most roundabouts for a United States city with 122 in operation and more planned. However, roundabouts still have yet to gain universal acceptance across the rest of the country.
As most know, roundabouts have been proven to be far safer than signalized intersections, reducing fatalities by 90% and are more environmentally friendly due to less vehicle idling time and more available green space. They are also autonomous vehicle ready, relying on vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communication instead of expensive sensors that have to be installed and maintained separately as upgrades to existing signal equipment.
In the case of power outages, they also still function, and have even been deployed as temporary traffic control at signalized intersections to safely and efficiently move traffic while signals were inoperative for an extended period of time, such as when Hurricane Florence impacted Wilmington, North Carolina in 2018, knocking out power for days.
In addition, they now are being viewed as excellent solutions to distracted driving as a result of a 2018 study by the Risk Institute of The Ohio State University and also red light running as stated in a recent article by AASHTO. These are two immediate problems that cause far too many injuries and deaths each year.
Roundabouts should have become as universally known and accepted as traffic signals in this country as the first roundabouts have now been operational for over 20 years. However, the lack of specific laws that address roundabouts and the lack of specific driver education are keys to why that knowledge and acceptance hasn’t happened.
To solve the first issue, there needs to be an update to the Uniform Vehicle Code (UVC) which hasn’t been formally updated since 2000 due to the lack of funding for the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Laws and Ordinances which was responsible for updates. The NCUTLO was forced to go on hiatus when roundabouts were just starting to be implemented in the United States. Supposedly the NCUTLO’s duties were taken over by the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Devices (NCUTCD) with the charge of looking over the UVC and recommending any updates. A draft update was issued by the NCUTCD in 2015, but no longer appears on the Committee website.
With no updated universal language for roundabouts, the majority of states have ignored implementing roundabout specific language in their laws, instead relying on existing laws based on the older UVC which do not adequately cover roundabout operations. However, eleven (including Indiana) have now implemented their own updated language for roundabouts that is inconsistent from state to state. Both consequences have created enforcement problems and have led to driver confusion.
Concerning a lack of driver education, not all states have mandatory driver education with classroom instruction to become a licensed driver. For those states that do, only a handful have required curriculum that specifically addresses roundabouts. Most states do not even require the instructors teaching the curriculum to know anything about roundabouts.
In the absence of driver education, the education about roundabouts that is taking place seems to be limited to project specific workshops or meetings for communities during the planning or design phase of a roundabout, or when problems or confusion arise and agencies or law enforcement distribute reminders of how roundabouts are supposed to operate. However, even these reminders are not always complete or correct.
All fifty states now have at least one roundabout with most having several, so the need for universal roundabout education is necessary and will only lead to safer operations with existing roundabouts and acceptance for more to be built, saving time, energy, our environment, and most importantly - lives. The lack of a requirement of formal driver education for all states is also concerning, so federally mandated driver education in order to become a licensed driver should become part of Buttigieg’s plan to revamp public education, with roundabouts as part of the core curriculum.
Just mentioning roundabouts on the national stage however, would be a significant improvement in universal knowledge and awareness. How many times in the national media have we heard about roundabouts and their benefits? Pete Buttigieg’s campaign for president is a golden opportunity to bring roundabouts into the national spotlight as an aspect of generational change. As someone who has implemented them in his community, “Mayor Pete” is the perfect champion for the changes necessary to the tools of enforcement and education that will eventually lead to universal knowledge and acceptance of roundabouts in the United States, and safer and greener communities for all as a result.
