I find doing that hilarious...the look's you get from people who have been waiting to get on the roundabout when they see you come round again....

maybe I'm just sad... :p

I can think of about 2 traffic circles in South Carolina. They do exist on a very limited basis.

If the US were to implement something with even higher speeds, there would have to be some kind of test to get onto it. South Carolina had to put wire barriers in the grass medians of all of its interstates because so many cars crossed into oncoming lanes and killed people. Raising speeds even further doesn't seem like to good of an idea with the volume of traffic that there is.

I always wondered if the statistics of accidents in the Autobahn is greater/less than that of a major American highway.

Here in northern Indiana, there is only one roundabout that I know of (A local paper claimed it was the only one in the whole northern half of the state), and it happens to be only a few miles away. The only problem is that it's in an office area, and I never have occasion to drive there. I like roundabouts, but then I drive an '89 Civic Wagon, and I dislike (and often just hate) any car larger than a mid-size sedan. Maybe that's just because all the big tough guys in trucks think it's fine sport to try to run me over. Bastards.

Quite a few roundabouts around here in Ontario.

Plenty of roundabouts here in Utah. I can think of several within just a five minute drive from my house. As far as speed limits go, I don't think anybody really pays attention to them here. 85-90 is fairly common when your driving down the interstate, even though its a 65 limit. Of course, the police have really started cracking down on it in the last few months, but nobody seems to care.

Answer to the original question is easy, compare the US driving test to that of Germany. I may be wrong, but I do believe they have to take a skid course, wreck a car, and take a test that is overall much more rigorous than the US test.

Not quite

There is a traffic circle in Long Beach, CA, not far from my house. Wretched damn thing, I go out of my way to avoid it whenever possible since theres literaly one accident a week in it.

There are traffic circles everywhere here...

...or then not.

No skid courses or such things. But at the school I went to we got a coupon for an ADAC(Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club)-safety training.

Skid courses? They use those for driving tests?

Many places I've driven commonly have people going 90+. California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming. I've gone up to 125 myself on some deserted roads in Nevada. However, legend tell people go 120+ on autobahns.

BTW, as for Montana, anybody actually saw roads there with no speed limit? I have not. 75, just like in neighbouring states.

I usually drive around 120 on the Autobahn. Sometimes 130 or 140. After that my car starts to fall apart. All given numbers are measured in km/h

[QUOTE=James Bond]I do agree traffic light's on roundabout's seems kinda silly but at peak times you have so much traffic coming off and on at certain points that the less busy turn-off's don't get a chance.[/quote]
Yeah, sometimes the traffic profile is such that certain entrances would never et a chance to get on to the roundabout. It gives each entrance a chance to go. Also, you can get roundabouts with part-time traffic lights on as well. It's all very obvious when you're in the car, since it''s exactly the same as lots of traffic light controlled junctions.

Same with those "Magic Roundabouts" where you have 5 mini roundabouts laid out in a circle. From the air, they look impossible to navigate, but when you're actually driving around them, you can't see any other mini than the one you're currently going around, so it's just like a few mini-roundabouts in a row.

And as for the Americans, perhaps the reason they can't handle the odd roundabout is because there are so few of them, and they're not used to them? Certainly, I hate driving in London because I hardly ever do it or anything similar, so I'm not used to the style of driving required.

[QUOTE=James Bond]The main issue on the motorways I feel is not the speed but the distance people leave between themselves and the car infront, tailgatting is probably the main cause of accidents, not the speed at which people drive, IMO. Oh and don't get me started on people who stick in the middle lane...or lane hog's...[/QUOTE]

As to the distance thing, the A14 is a prime example - from Cambridge up to Huntington (just before it splits) plenty of accidents (minor ones) along there due to people driving too close to each other becase the road can't handle the volume of traffic.

You could punish them by going 45 in the left lane.

Not really, they are a bit more strict, but nothing like that.

The big difference is the PRICE. It is hella expensive to get a driver's license in Germany.