[Eil]

Roundabouts make a lot of sense when designed properly, and in the right place. I love them (they're just plain fun to drive through), but these are probably the top issues:

1. We mid-westerners, by and large, have never seen a roundabout before, let alone know how to properly drive through them. They weren't even so much as mentioned in driver's training classes around here until a few years ago. Whenever a new one goes up, there's a lot of confusion. The most common problem is misunderstanding or ignoring the yield sign: Some people treat the roundabout like a circular four-way stop and others just zoom in without yielding and cut off the traffic already in the circle.

2. Inconsistent entrance and lane rules. We have two major roundabouts in this town, both installed within the last five years. One of them prohibits lane changes inside the circle, one doesn't. At one of them, traffic entering the roundabout yields to traffic in the roundabout. In the other, vice versa.

3. Building roundabouts in an area for no good reason. On I-75 outside of Saginaw, there's an overpass with on and off ramps. A few years ago, they tore out the traditional traffic signal used on every single other on/off ramp in the state and instead put a roundabout on each end of the bridge. This was a very silly thing to do because the traffic volume was not that high in the first place. Moreover, it's a very industrial area with lots of big trucks and oversize loads that now have to navigate the roundabout very slowly and very carefully just to stay in the lane and not run into passenger vehicles whose drivers aren't paying attention.