In a roundabout way

Summer in the US means roadwork. At every turn, in towns and on highways, roads have been under construction. Or so it seems. There’s more than one stretch of Interstate in upstate New York that has arguably been in a constant state of resurfacing and repair for five years straight. Not widening the road. Not adding lanes. It’s like the painters on the Golden Gate Bridge: the minute they finish it’s time to start over.

These road crews work through the night, in storms, driving rain, even during the morning rush hour when they take their lives in their own hands just waving the traffic on with their little red flags. One late night return from Cooperstown we saw a tractor trailer that had missed a series of cones and lane closed signs and barreled into the back of a stationary construction vehicle. Whether the truck driver had fallen asleep was unknown, but the stadium-bright lighting evidently hadn’t been sufficient.

I must have exhaled my sympathy one too many times since my five year old now shakes her head saying, “Look, Mummy. Those poor, poor men working in the rain.” At least she’s picking up on the sympathy rather than my cat-like abhorrence of working outside in inclement weather. The subject of her sympathy is a four-way intersection that has been under construction all summer. Diggers have ripped up all four corners, great tracts of dirt scooped up, and with the chaos coupled with Hurricane Irene’s rains, we’ve had to trust the master plan.

American roads are surely the hardest working strips of tarmac the world over. From high school on, the average American owns some sort of car. Americans love cars, and they love to drive. In the UK, suggest a night out to friends and what follows is a convoluted series of contortions about Billy getting to John’s house for Vicky to pick up before stopping at Sally’s on the way. And the return leg is simple: call a cab. Over here, once a plan is set, a dozen attendees will show up in a dozen cars. I know when my husband’s band practice is about to start simply by counting cars in the drive. God forbid anyone actually carpool.

Last week I walked in on a conversation among parents at school pick up. “I hate roundabouts,” one mother lamented. “Must be taking a leaf out of Massachusetts’ book,” I ventured, not wanting to give away my palpable excitement at the news that the ripped up four-way intersection would soon be circular. Judging by the faces around me, consensus agreed the new traffic pattern coming to the neighborhood was putting a crimp in the status quo of the school run.

There is no doubt New York has gone roundabout crazy. When Chatham and the DOT came up with a new traffic pattern that would involve a small traffic circle I was thrilled. Randomly coming across the big bertha that is Pittsfield’s roundabout was like discovering a portal to Europe. Back in New York, Delmar revamped Route 85 with not one but three roundabouts to reach the Slingerlands Bypass, and even the trip to my daughter’s ski lessons soon included the novelty of a roundabout in Schenectady of all places.

Roundabouts are popping up everywhere, but not all drivers have figured out how to use them. If you passed your driving test before 2005, chances are roundabouts weren’t covered and nothing has come in the mail with a refresher. Having suffered through the day-long classroom portion of a US driving test at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, I should know. (So what if I’d had a license since I was eighteen? Buying a car meant registering one, and registering requires a US license. The class of awkward but giddy sixteen year olds clearly thought I was a drunk driver required to retake the test or lose driving privileges forever.)

The trouble is that traffic circles only work if everyone agrees on how they work. Those waiting to join have to be willing to wait until those spinning around the middle safely pass them. And those on the roundabout have to be allowed to get off, hopefully using their blinking indicators, so that the people joining don’t push on and cut them off. I’ve tried all the traditional rules of engagement, pausing, giving way, indicating my intention to take an exit but experience overrules. It’s everyman for himself. Hesitate and you’re just as likely to be side-blinded by a cautious driver as driven off the road by an over-zealous one. I don’t know if public service announcements are an option but someone should intervene if New York is truly going to embrace roundabouts in anything more than a haphazard roundabout sort of way.