A Few Facts about Roundabouts

• The world’s first roundabout (in the modern style) was the Brautwiesenplatz in Görlitz, Germany, opened in 1899.
• Columbus Circle in New York, designed by William Phelps Eno, was another early example of a roundabout, from 1904.
• There was also a gyratory system in use for traffic in the Place de l’Étoile in Paris in 1907.
• The first British roundabout (in the modern style) was built in Letchworth Garden City in 1909.
• Roundabouts were first introduced in Australia during the 1950s.
• A 1998 survey in USA towns in which roundabouts had been proposed found 68 per cent of the public opposed them.
• The Danish word for roundabout is rundkørsel. The Hungarian word is körforgalom.
• The mini-roundabout was invented by Frank Blackmore, of the UK’s Transport and Road Research Laboratory.
• In the Channel Islands there are some roundabouts for which neither the cars on the roundabout nor those approaching it have the right of way.
• In the city of Nelson in New Zealand there is an average of one accident on a roundabout per year.
• To build a three-lane roundabout you need a circular space of approximately 67 metres by 91 metres in diameter.
• A raindrop roundabout is a roundabout that isn’t round, but is instead shaped like a raindrop.
• As a general rule, when driving on the left, traffic flows clockwise, but when driving on the right, traffic flows counter-clockwise.
• There are more than 20,000 roundabouts in France.
• Roundabouts were not introduced in Japan until 2013.
• In some areas of America roundabouts are known as rotaries.
• In certain countries, including Belgium, Poland and Slovenia, a variation on the traditional two-lane roundabout design is known as the turbo roundabout.
• There are over 40 roundabouts in Redditch (near Birmingham in the United Kingdom).