> A 1993 study in the Netherlands examined collision experience at 181 intersections converted to roundabouts. Pedestrian collisions (all injury severities) dropped 73% and pedestrian casualties dropped 89%.
> Evaluations in Sweden concluded that single-lane roundabouts are very safe for pedestrians, at about a 78% reduction in injuries, and that multi-lane roundabouts are about as safe as other intersections.
> A 2002 study of collision experience at the roundabouts in Park City, Vail, West Vail and Avon, Colorado, showed 2 pedestrian crashes prior to the roundabouts operating with
over 164 million vehicle movements, compared to 1 pedestrian crash with roundabouts experiencing over 282 million vehicle movements.
> With the installation of a roundabout, this study finds that the before-after analysis results in a 40% decrease in all severity injury crashes for all roadway users, a 70% decrease in fatal and serious injury crashes for bikes and pedestrians, and a 15% decrease in total pedestrian bike and pedestrian crashes.
OK, so "worse for pedestrians" boils down to a statistic about body hits. If you are not struck, you are not having a worse pedestrian experience. My bad!
> becomes congested with no time/space gaps between vehicles, is worse for pedestrians
Why? This feels like it's assuming pedestrians share the street with vehicles, but besides the US and some other places, don't most "modern" countries have separate pavements/streets for pedestrians? Besides in the country-side, vehicles and pedestrians don't generally share the road in populated areas here in Spain. For crossing roads outside cities, building a pedestrian tunnel below or a bridge above seems to preferred here, except in the cases where it isn't possible, and in cities obviously.
There used to be an epidemic of cars striking and killing pedestrians. The advertising industry (hired by the auto industry) came up with the new imaginary crime called "jaywalking". This diverted attention from the killers and onto the victims. Just one more version of the victim blaming that derives from the Just World Hypothesis.
Right, you're talking about "traffic participant", are you including pedestrians or not? Because as I said, in many places, "vehicles" and "pedestrians" are well-separated and don't impact/affect each other, so not sure what cluster-fuck could be created there. Seems less of a cluster-fuck than relying on cross-walks and stop-lights?
However there are often pedestrian crossings across the roads or the volume is low enough pedestrians can easily cross. A local roundabout got busy enough we had crossing added less than 10 years ago and the biggest road there was a minor B road.
I am a pedestrian due to sight issues and have found very few places where it is difficult to cross when needed.
This is true if you can alter the properties of the physically existent universe, else it is not true, and, indeed, drivers do not even slow down largely because they feel frustrated when traveling along a road with a 45 MPH speed limit at an average speed of 20 MPH.
