ROUNDABOUTS in Pakistan are heavily misused with respect to the traffic sense. And this is the reason why roundabouts are failure and we go for signalised intersections, followed by underpasses or flyovers.

A small roundabout has the capacity to handle 2,000 vehicles per hour if used wisely by the drivers. To use, say, a four-leg intersection roundabout, having, say, three lanes in circulation, the driver who needs to exit on the first leg needs to be in the outermost lane of the circulation, and the driver who wants to exit the last leg of the roundabout needs to be in the inner most lane. In such a way, all vehicles will clear the roundabout without any traffic congestion.

Moreover, the interference in the roundabouts is also a major problem in the country. A vehicle from the approaching roads joining the roundabout can enter only when there is a sufficient gap in the roundabout from the already circulating vehicles approaching, not like the usual practice here where the errant vehicles enter the roundabout and disturb the movement of vehicles, creating traffic jam and conflicts.

The land use surrounding the roundabouts needs to be controlled and haphazard development should be ceased to make traffic movement along the circulating path effective.

Lane discipline is also a concern.

A practical example of intersection can be taken in which there is right turn signalised movement and other lanes are signal-free for the traffic to go straight. Now, this right-turning signal movement has, say, two lanes, and straight/through movement has two lanes, so the drivers violate the lane discipline and enter the through lane to move towards the right, creating a traffic jam for the vehicles that want to move straight.

The existing vehicles in the dedicated right-turning lane also get disturbed as this invading traffic breaks the entire right-turning movement which eventually slows it down when the signal gets green. Unfortunately, no law enforcement is seen in such matters. Rather, the authorities plan to make it signal-free corridors by building underpasses or flyovers. Signal-free corridors are not encouraged in urban areas because they hinder pedestrian crossings and increase accidents.

Therefore, there is a need to plan the development keeping in view the available corridors and then implement strict traffic laws for drivers who violate roadway lanes. Otherwise, some day in the not-too-distant future, there might be a time when every-one in the country would find themselves stuck on one roundabout or the other!

Musa Zafar Dar
Lahore

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2022