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Freakonomics radRadiat the the the io is supported by why the best way to send send and receive money internationally picture this you need to send money abroad. Would you go to your bank will exchange rate? Will they give you chances are not the one you see on Google Banks and provider is usually mark up the rate to make extra money. But with wise you always get the real mid-market exchange rate when you send money to 80 countries, and that saves you money wise even has a multi-currency account that let you hold in convert of 254 currencies and debit card to join over 10 million customers who save more than four million dollars from Bad rates everyday and try wise for free at wise.com Freakonomics.

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Freakonomics radio sponsored by Bebe go when was the last time you tried something new something exciting something fresh something like authentic Korean dumplings for BB go with bold delicious flavors rooted in 5,000 years of Korean culinary tradition bibigo is an opportunity for us all to get out of our deep-seated food rut and share something new together, whether you're hosting a party of 5 or a party of one. There's no better way to mix up meal time than with bibigo. So go mix it up and go bibigo authentic Korean dumplings now in the freezer aisle.

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Yes, I'm a member of the gentlemen's club. Let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly. It's called the dull men's club. Yes do as in boring women like tall men tell you that we're not going to run off with Lady Gaga do something understood. We're very reliable exactly.

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Bat is Kevin Beresford. In addition to the do men's club. He belongs to another group that might sound do from the presidents have the UK random Appreciation Society has Lord of the Rings. That's my official title around. If you don't know is a small circular traffic intersection. Typically with one lane. There is no traffic light or stop sign more likely a yield sign at each entry and exit the traffic there for flows continuously. If slowly around a center Island around about is not the same as a rotary, which is also known as the traffic circle rotary is tend to be substantially larger than roundabouts with higher speeds.

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Roundabouts are much more common in the UK ban in the US and you could think of them as a Kinder gentler version of the rotary, so that's nice but still around about appreciation society in the year 2003.

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I run a small printers in the town of Redditch in Worcestershire. England Redditch is in the West Midlands near Birmingham, but no Cinema. We did have a 24-hour checks go but that was about what we did have a copious amounts of random boats. So just for the address for the king of what we ran over by a reindeer by calendars to get to our customers and I can't believe the feedback. I got it sold. All right around that first calendar. It was called the roundabout of Redditch.

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It inspired further additions The Best of British roundabout of roundabouts of the world. So it was only natural that around about Appreciation Society follow any old days. We used to be so nobody monthly basis in a pub called the black tap. We would swap Teresa and randomize that me coming back when you're playing on holidays.

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I hope you'll get back to all that once the pandemic receives. But when you get together in the pub to discuss all things roundabout, no offense Kevin, but what what's there to discuss such a quantity of the Rind of ice statues Plains boats trains pubs churches open up in Yorkshire a working windmill that actually produces flat. I think anything can go on a run now. Have you named your best roundabout of the year for 2020? The English want is the flounders random at in Ashford and Ken's it represents.

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The first world war you've got Seven Bridges chubby soldiers are with their heads bowed with a Vinci's world will change even the trees that have been planted there from Flanders. It's very poignant International.

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Panda baby cranky won the international random of the guy. Can you believe it's the first of its kind in camera and what makes it a gay roundabout. It's a rainbow colored rainbow right away. Is that oh, yeah. I see it. Now. I just looked it up from above. It looks like a target with the colors of the rainbow emanating out. It's very beautiful. Very small this one. Yeah.

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Anything can go on a roundabout and this is a great example that city of Canberra. They overwhelmingly voted for the legality of same-sex marriages. So that was the president from the gay community.

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Kevin Beresford plainly appreciates the aesthetic possibilities of the roundabout but round about Aesthetics are not what we are here to talk about today mission was to put the rain tonight into America. Could The Humble really save thousands of wives it is true that more than 35,000 Americans are killed each year in traffic crashes and about a quarter of those deaths happen at intersections. All those crashes that kill 35,000 people also caused millions of injuries in nearly a quarter trillion dollars in property damage medical and legal costs lost productivity and more numbers look like if some of our standard intersections with traffic lights were swapped out for roundabouts today on Freakonomics radio.

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We consider this and many other roundabout questions including the Eco.

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Amex of traffic intersection couple million dollars for intersection the environmental implications of the emissions is less significantly less. We consider a surprising technical complication keeps be stuck there at the entrance to roundabout forever. And we wonder why doesn't America have more roundabouts.

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Death is Freakonomics radio the podcast that explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Here's your host Stephen Dubner.

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Tell us a little bit about Carmel Indiana. I know it is. I'm not sure if suburb is the right word, but it's it's right next to Indianapolis. We like to use the term Edge City because it is a growing city on the edge of Indianapolis.

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Jim Brainard is the mayor of Carmel Indiana our city today is just over a hundred thousand when I became mayor in 1996 that had about 25,000 people and it's licao. So we've had a lot of growth is 50 square miles. We should double the size of the island of Manhattan it a little less dense a little less dad's, although we've worked really hard to build a walkable pedestrian-friendly downtown. So as I understand it mister Mayor of Carmel is particularly famous for early prolific and its use of a particular traffic pattern.

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Yes, we have Biltmore runabouts than any other city in the United State or North America and perhaps the world. We have a hundred and thirty-three with a handful under construction as we speak. There's about 15 of traffic lights left in our city all the one of those I would like to see converted to around about then will pretty much be finished.

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This one little adversity accounts for just under 2% of all the roundabouts in the u.s. The best estimate we could find puts the US total at around 7,000 the UK as as many as twenty-five thousand rounds, of course, it's much smaller than the US France is as many as 50,000 roundabouts. So how did Carmel Indiana become an American outlier in roundabouts when I was doing graduate study in England back in the early 80s, and so I asked one of her Consulting Engineers to design a couple for a new road.

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We were building on the east side of Carmel. This is a 1996 when Brainerd became mayor and he says no I won't put my fresh on stamp on them. They're taking these things out a New England. They're dangerous Brainerd suspected that the engineer was confusing roundabouts with the much larger higher speed rotary is a forgivable confusion given the nomenclature and rotaries were and still are quite common.

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New England but at the time Jim Brainard didn't feel roundabout conversant enough to challenge engineer and so the next weekend, I drove up at Purdue University to their engineering library and found a bunch of articles about the differences between roundabouts in a rotary and it took these articles back and handed the engineers. So please wear these.

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What is as programmed about as a person can be as evidenced by the 133 and Counting roundabouts in his relatively small City? I would put him somewhere between roundabout booster and round about evangelist. So I was curious to know if his boosterism is based on personal preferences or something more empirical in that another words. What problems exactly does the roundabout solve. Let's start with the most important problem injury and death from vehicle crashes in 2019 the most recent year for which we have complete data crashes in the US produced around 36,000 deaths in 2.75 million injuries, as we noted earlier about quarter of all crash fatalities happen at intersections.

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So how do roundabouts and non roundabout intersection differ on fatality.

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Looking at us crash data from 2017 to 2019. You see that .1% of crashes at roundabouts result in a death that could be the death of driver passenger pedestrians cyclists any 1.1% That is one death per 1000 crashes at roundabouts. Okay, and how about your standard four-way intersection with traffic lights or stop signs. The death rate there is even worse is what's called a y intersection picture the capital Y with a three-way convergence for every 1000 crashes at a y intersection. There are nine desk.

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Now there could be confounding factors here could be the roundabouts tend to be put in areas where there's less dangerous driving already or areas where fewer people drive at night, but just looking at the data on fatal crashes. It would appear that roundabouts are much safer than other intersections why Jim Brainard again? Roundabouts are smaller and because they're smaller. Everybody has a drive-thru them slowly. It's about speed even compared to a rotary roundabouts are slower a large rotary allows cars to travel around 40 miles an hour with a lot of acceleration breaking an ample opportunity for Collision the roundabout meanwhile forces vehicles to slow down to around 15 or 20 miles an hour at traffic light intersections mean while everybody is sped up even when that stop light is green to get through before it changes and sometimes we.

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Drive through a pink light to a pink light. If you don't know is we called traffic light? That's just about to turn red and the human error rate doesn't really change. So the question is what type of accent are we going to have while if you can spit up to go through a yellow light or pink light or even a green light and somebody makes a mistake. It can be a very bad accident at slower speeds is not nearly as dangerous and safer for pedestrians. It's safer for the handicapped.

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It's safer for blind people draw speed in the only Factor roundabouts allow the intersection to manage itself in a manner of speaking. It's Doug Hecox. He is a spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration or fhwa drivers have to negotiate that Circle a little bit more slowly bites a little bit more of a conscientious driver by having to slow down and look around and accommodate oncoming traffic and it's just for a short. Of time. Usually just a few seconds, but that can be.

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What a difference that it takes to save lives Hecox and the fhwa may not be as unabashedly Pro roundabout as Carmel mayor Jim Brainard, but they are pro round about their significant impacts. Pardon, the pun associated with having roundabouts. The fhwa helps u.s. States and territories manage 4.2 million miles a public road. They are a proven safety countermeasure because the track record speaks for itself the numbers tell the story. So the US average fatality is 400000 per year is 14 gym Brainerd again that figure he's fighting traffic deaths per year per 100,000 people actually bit high now more like 12 deaths per 100,000 people still.

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How does that compare to Carmel? Carmel? Is it to 400,000 and you're going to contribute most of that benefit to round about saying? Yes, this is a true Dover Ronda Rousey.

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Almost all fatalities happen in intersections because of the conflicting traffic flows. We had no fatalities last year and intersections though fatality zwirner other places a motorcycle that collided with a tree in elderly gentleman that walked out right in front of a vehicle. We're not sure why he did that, you know, we've done this chart of people in other cities around Indiana one Community is about fifty thousand in Southern Indiana has 30 deaths per year per hundred thousand. Another one is in the twenties Indianapolis is just below 12.

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And so you can extrapolate their population close to people and see if they had all run about how many people would still be alive that aren't it's very sobering server analysis when you do that.

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You could of course be other non roundabout reasons why Carmel is so much safer. Maybe there is less drinking and driving their maybe they have the best driver's ed program ever invented. We should know that roundabouts May confuse. Some drivers tends to be as hell Familia. The drivers are with that intersection roundabouts do tend to produce more non fatal crashes that lead to property damage usually to The Beatles themselves driving on a curve rather than a straight line specially if you're unfamiliar with that particular intersection that can lead to more fender benders or encounters with the center island in the roundabout still if your primary concern is the safety of human beings the roundabout data are pretty persuasive.

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So you might expect that other places with a lot of roundabouts would also be safer the UK for instance again, there may be a lot of differences in driving between.

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Uk and the us but the fact is that the UK is swimming with roundabouts and their overall rate of traffic fatalities is well less than half the US rate the UK traffic data also show that crashes at roundabouts are far less likely to be fatal the non roundabout crashes essentially mirroring the US state that's not pretend that roundabouts are a Magic Bullet or the only bullet red light cameras for instance as much as some people dislike them. They have also been shown to make intersection safer by cutting down on the number of drivers rushing to make the light red light cameras do increase the incidence of rear-end crashes as some drivers slam on their brakes to avoid but these rear end crashes are less dangerous than the right angle crashes that happened when one vehicle blast through an intersection that another vehicle is trying to cross it perpendicular.

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2 over all the evidence in favor of the safety of roundabouts is robust, but wait, there's more Cox again from the Federal Highway Administration many in a normal Community like the fact that because traffic isn't stopped like it is at a traditional signalized intersection. You don't have vehicles idling and therefore the emissions from those islands Vehicles is significantly improved his calculate how many tons of carbon we save every year and Jim Brainard again Mayor of Carmel, Indiana that we say when I ever has run to three million dollars a year a feel for the general public by replacing stoplight Studies by Transportation Scholars have found the converting standard intersection to a roundabout does significantly cut fuel consumption and carbon emissions Transportation Scholars.

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Point to get another advantage of roundabouts smoother traffic now that might seem counterintuitive Lucid to me. When I first looked at this research, you would think that the slow speed required by around about which is good for safety would be bad for traffic flow. But the data say, otherwise the day to say that roundabout reduce congestion. Why is that? Well think about how a traffic signal manages traffic a traffic signal is not efficient at all. That is Mike McBride. He is the former city engineer of Carmel Indiana roll can vary from City to city but in the city of Carmel the city engineer manages Transportation network issues including in this case the construction of roundabouts during his tenure McBride oversaw the building of roughly 90 roundabouts.

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As of the mid-1990s, they were very few if any roundabouts in Indiana, but a 1996 Jim Brainard became the mayor of Carmel at the time McBride work for an engineering firm not the city itself. So the the owner of the company came back to my desk and he said what do you know about roundabouts? And I said what's around about 6, so that was my introduction to round about this as well. Learn everything you can because you're only expert McBride did become an expert and a convert especially when you compare a roundabout to an intersection with traffic signals signalized intersections are definitely more familiar to people so they've got a much wider public acceptance than roundabouts, but really signalized intersections are designed for maximum efficiency, basically about an hour and a half a day, maybe 45 minutes in the a.m. Peak hour and 45 minutes in the PM peak hour.

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That's about 20% of the daily traffic. We've all been sitting at an intersection at a red light when there are no opposing traffic cars. We're we're just sitting there right burning feel wasting our time 2018 think about it from a sustainability and a reduction of fuel consumption standpoint. Roundabouts really have the upper hand.

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Okay, if you like me just trying to think of roundabouts sound too good to be true. They're safer than other intersections. They lead to less fuel consumption and less pollution their even better for traffic flow. So there must be a cat's right coming up after the break. What about the economics of the roundabout versus the traffic light it likely cost more than your house and if roundabouts are so great. Why don't we have more of them? I'm not a psychologist. So I won't pretend to give you a psychological analysis of the American Driving public.

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Don't forget to check out the other shows in the Freakonomics radio network. No stupid questions and people I mostly admire they and the entire catalog of Freakonomics radio or all available wherever podcasts are giving away. I'll talk to you in a minute.

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Freakonomics radio is supported by ZipRecruiter businesses have had to be flexible this year from working remotely to pivoting their business models for long-term survival. If you are in charge of hiring for your business these pivots that made your job even more challenging. Thankfully there's one place that you can count on to make hiring easier ziprecruiter.com freak ZipRecruiter technology find the right people for your job and invite them to apply. If no wonder that four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day and right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com Freak Fest ziprecruiter.com freak.

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Let's say you've been listening to this episode and you are a mayor or sit on a city councillor run a transportation department. And you said yourself self. I think it's time to get rid of some traffic lights and get me and roundabouts. They saved lives and fuel they cut down on pollution and congestion. Why on Earth would I not want them? Well, one thing we have not talked about yet is the cost of around the belt versus the signalized intersection, especially if you want to convert an existing intersection, there are a lot of factors to consider including real estate around about can take up more space than a standard intersection.

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And if you're in an older City think how hard it could be to retrofit around about onto an existing intersection.

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So let's start with the most obvious costs of the traffic light intersection the traffic lights themselves for that. We need specialist. My name is Zachary Crockett and I'm a reporter who's obsessed with the economics of everyday things. It seems like you cast your eye in a lot of things that a lot of people walk past and don't think about how you do that. One thing I do is I'm an active member of probably 200 Facebook groups. So my speed is, you know posts from Dogecoin Traders and Doomsday Preppers chicken Farmers all kinds of music communities and we should say you're not a chicken farmer or Dogecoin investor that true true.

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That Crockett has been brewing in with lately is Traffic Engineers the people responsible for Designing sourcing building and maintaining signalized traffic intersections. The modern traffic light has been around since the 1920s. It's hard to say exactly how many traffic like there are in the US but these Engineers have a rule. News roughly one signalized intersection per 1000 residence. If we told that to be true we're looking at somewhere around 330,000 signalized intersections the United States and what is 1 intersection 10 to cost if you walk up to the standard intersection in San Mateo, California where I'm from you might see if 16 different signal heads with three sets of light each and then maybe 48 polls.

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You've got Forty-Eight of those push buttons for pedestrian Crossing. You've got a bunch of underground wiring brackets and custom-made hard.

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We're so that standard four-way signalized intersection it likely cost more than your house all in your looking at anywhere from $250,000 to a million plus.

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Keep in mind Crockett lives in an expensive part of expensive state which may drive up some cost in any case. Let's break down that pricey intersection. So for starters, there's material costs and there's a labor costs and it's about 50% for the design the engineering to development work and then another 50% for the materials and construction materials. So let's start with the signal heads those rectangular boxes that contain the red yellow and green lights manufactured in the great city of Anaheim, California to $3,000 a pop when they're up there dangling in the sky.

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They look tiny but when you're confronted with one face-to-face there if the penis and those big hummus need to be held up by something typically poles and supporting Master arms only a few companies in the United States that manufacture them. They can easily set a city back $25,000 a pop.

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They can take up to 10 months to get the reason they take so long. Is that really just some crazy engineering that goes into the process they have to be hurricane resistance. And you know, he's our spouse impound beams that are hanging over our heads. There's a lot riding on whether or not taste same place down on the ground and essential to any intersection is the control box is like the size of a mini fridge and inside there still a bird's nest of wires and flashing lights and computers.

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It's kind of the brains of the operation the controller usually runs around $30,000. The electrification of an intersection can also be costly depending on the circumstances wiring has a very dramatic ranging cost me like $3 a foot to $100 a foot. It's not the wiring itself. It's more what the wiring requires. Sometimes you have to do underground Drilling and routing and you have to rearrange an entire intersection to,.

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What's the wiring? Let's not forget those pedestrian push buttons. You see at the crosswalks which by the way off and don't work all together. Those my run around $20,000 per signalized intersection and all this equipment will require maintenance and repair traffic signal technician V truly seen it all the Florida hurricane drunk drivers plowing into massive steel beams that require months reconstruction wraps for some reason are attracted to the sweetness of the wiring signal heads need to be constantly repainted in Hardware. Nice. Fixed. There was an instance in Matsumoto, Japan pigeon excrement once short-circuited 25000 traffic signals here is how one report described this incident a large number of pigeons have been defecating on an insulator the pile of crap.

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So huge that it dripped down in meter length of the insulator and caused a short trigger.

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Automatic shutdown.

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How much has the technology changed over the past? What's a 50 years for traffic lights generally one of the major Innovations in recent years, which is actually pretty simple is the transition from enchant Destin to LED bulbs. So a lot of cities have made that big switch and it's dramatically reduce their electricity bills. I know LED bulbs cost a lot more upfront other they'll to last longer are there other downside to the LED bulb. So one thing we've seen happen is that in Midwestern states like a Illinois or Minnesota the LED bulbs save on energy, but they actually didn't produce enough heat to melt snow in the winter.

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So that obscures vision for driver's and at one point it cause a rash of traffic accidents. So that's cheaper. LED bulbs had to be a fixed with the special heat lamp attachments that negated any savings that they would have had.

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What it costs drivers to sit at traffic lights waiting for them to turn green the Federal Highway Administration. They estimated traffic signals account for about 295 million Vehicle hours of traffic delays per year. If you work it out based on median household income Figures. It's about 2 billion dollars in Lost Time.

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So those are some of the costs of building and maintaining a standard traffic light intersection. How does the roundabout compared to that we go back to Jim Brainard the mayor of Carmel Indiana the roundabout capital of the United States. What is a couple different analyses? We need to look at first of all, you're converting a four-way stop to around about the runabouts housing to be less expensive. That is if you got an intersection with for stop signs, it will be cheaper to build around about then it would be to add traffic lights at least in Indiana.

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That's because of all the traffic like cost that Zachary Crockett told us about plus she got operating costs in addition to that. You have to send Engineers out to reset the timing which somehow gets off on a regular basis and then every 25-30 years. You have to replace that apparatus. Do you have a coffee on a thunderstorm with electricity goes out you had to send a police officer out to drink traffic at a traffic light the roundabout keeps working.

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What if an intersection RT has traffic lights and you want to convert it to around about Brainerd says this easily pays off in the long run. But in the short run there's a substantial cost couple million dollars for intersection probably on the average because you're taking out that light you're probably buying some additional land in the corners. He have to move underground utilities out from under the light and what's that do to real estate and accessibility to that real estate whether it's shopping or doctors offices your sewing if I've got a four-way traffic light intersection presumably you've got a business on every corner with the roundabout.

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Do you diminish your commercial access to the point where the cost savings from the roundabout itself your baby losing that savings because you're surrendering commercial opportunity. I don't think so. You know, sometimes I like the car stopped at a stoplight looking at my business has witnessed that what we're about we're trying to get traffic in and out.

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Safely and efficiently, we're not meant to Market your business with a stoplight. Here's where helps businesses, you know, if you can't get in and out of an area because it's congested people going to avoid that area. We can move 50% more cars per hour through a roundabout. They had a stoplight. So here's my big question. You make a very compelling argument for roundabouts and you've built more roundabouts then sounds like just about anybody has if they're so great. Why is every city in America not copying you a lot are there is a Wars movie the United States to build roundabouts.

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There's incentives in Federal Transportation law to clean the area that have bad air quality. Some of the State. Department transportation is our incursion roundabout construction. I've been asked by a lot of cities across the country to tell her story and try to help but I think change is hard for you.

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Change involves taking risks when one takes a risk you risking failure. It's harder to try something brand-new then to do what everyone else is always done and you'll politicians elected officials are making these decisions. I think that's been part of our hesitation. We has a vibrant representative democracy afraid to take risks because you want to get reelected. If you look all around the u.s. You do see a good bit of roundabouts hesitation in Flushing Michigan around about project that have been under consideration for years was killed off because of fierce public opposition in La Jolla, California and existing roundabout with critiqued by one resident you wanted to add stop signs and speed bumps to make the roundabout more quote civilized in Woodland Washington were the State Department of Transportation prefers roundabout.

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Construction the city council voted to instead upgrade its signalized intersections. Why as one council member said everybody loses their minds and nobody knows how to drive in a roundabout.

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To be fair people get used to what they're used to as Jim Brainard said change is hard for a lot of us. But let's be honest one reason the roundabout remains unpopular in the u.s. Is probably cuz it just seems to European the city of bath in Southwest. England is home to the iconic bath circus or Circle 3 curved rows of Townhouses the surround a Ring Road with three vehicle entry points. It was completed in the 1760s some sources consider the first modern round about to be one in gerlitz Germany which states to 1899 one person who subscribes to this roundabout is two European theory is Kevin Barris president of the UK roundabout Appreciation Society.

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It was that Lampoon Chevy Chase, but that's so nice stuck in a psychology.

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Read the Reign forever and debate. You may remember this scene. I guess what we do is just drive around the circle Lampoon's European Vacation Chevy Chase plays the American Dad Clark Griswold driving around London roundabout with his family.

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But the fears of La Jolla California and Woodland Washington our realized he can't get off the roundabout honey. I'll try next sorry so he goes round and round as it grows dark outside.

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I'm not a psychologist. So I won't pretend to give you a psychological analysis of the American Driving public that again is Doug Hecox with the Federal Highway Administration. But the Europeans have been using traffic circles in one form or another for far longer at a much higher percentage of the population than United States has the fact is that Columbus Circle in New York City was built in 1905. But for whatever reasons the roundabout simply didn't become popular in the US the reality of road projects in general whether they be roundabouts or big Bridges the response to and confess to it by the public really does very everywhere for any number of reasons some members of the public cost issues others balk at the design of it's symbolic at the timeline of it other than as a potential environmental downside of construction.

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And so it's hard to pinpoint why there may be resistance to roundabouts other than.

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Inconvenience or it's going to force me to slow down but we think they haven't really understood just how beneficial are roundabouts can be once the drivers use it and actually figure out how to do it properly. Their apprehension tends to go away indeed one survey published in a transportation Journal found that most drivers just before around about was built in their area were anti roundabout within six weeks of operation about half the drivers approved and once the roundabout was in place for at least a year the vast majority of drivers approved pick.

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One of the other complicating factors is that in the United States, we have the most established set of Transportation design guidelines compared to other countries that again is the traffic engineer Mike McBride. That's good for the most part. But what it does is it trains are driving population to.

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The transportation system to instruct them at every move causes them to put a lot of trust whether deserved their undeserved the technology that's built into our transportation system around about is a deviation from that because now I have to think for myself create a roundabout requires that a driver has to come to that yield sign and think for them self. Am I allowed to go am I not allowed to go? So it's uncomfortable for a driver that you know wants to be instructed.

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A roundabout really does stretch the phrase. It's it's almost like the processing power of the human brain. That is Oliver Cameron. I'm the co-founder and CEO of voyage voyage is an autonomous vehicle startup in California think self-driving taxis and shuttle van in places like senior living communities big spread out areas that are often built as it happens with a lot of roundabouts. If our future includes more autonomous vehicles and more roundabout. You have to wonder how well do mix when a human driver enters around about Cameron explains.

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What you're doing is having to do this intricate dance almost with all of these other people you're basically taking social cues from all of these different vehicles and you're doing that visually as we've been hearing.

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Learning this roundabout dance can be a challenge for human drivers in a robo taxi that same challenge is presents. You have to be able to receive these objects early objects, including not just other vehicles but pedestrians cyclists dogs, you have to be able to understand their intent understand that direction the speed and all of these things make for a particularly interesting Challenge and a robo taxis. Not quite as aggressive as a human driver that's very conservative and in some circumstances you cannot be conservative. It just doesn't work you to be stuck there at the entrance to roundabout forever or maybe inside the roundabout.

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So how did Voyage deal with roundabouts the way we think about roundabouts is it is a negotiation and that negotiations Thoughts by detecting these objects. What is that important is to.

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Extract almost metadata from each object like speed like the prediction of weather object is going to be in 5 seconds 10 seconds. And then what you're doing is playing forward a whole bunch of different scenarios the robo taxi calculate what it would do in each scenario and then chooses the option. It deems the safest these algorithms. We've been refining now for nearly four years. It's able to handle that sort of negotiation really quite elegantly voyages Vehicles can now navigate roundabouts as can the nexo self-driving car from Hyundai.

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Tesla says, it's self-driving cars will be able to handle roundabouts. But as CEO Elon Musk said last August it will take maybe a year or so to get really good at roundabouts worldwide the world. He said has a zillion weird Corner cases by Corner cases must mean.

[00:42:47]

Circumstances that arise outside the realm of normal driving everyone knows it's strange things can happen when you're driving with other vehicles pedestrians and cyclists the weather how would an autonomous vehicle handle an intersection where one of those LED traffic light bulbs failed melt the snow Oliver Cameron from Voyage believes that autonomous vehicles will eventually learn to manage just about everything that I think yes on a certain time Horizon and that's because these vehicles don't just learn from one situation. They learn from thousands of other situations. They're exposed to every stress test Under the Sun.

[00:43:32]

There is another large and less technical impediment that driverless Vehicles will need to overcome deferring control to software then it will cause anxiety. So it will be a challenge to get public acceptance.

[00:43:47]

I have confidence that people see the benefits of safety and convenience benefits and that transition won't be as painful as perhaps other Transportation changes over time.

[00:43:59]

Maybe maybe not. If you believe that autonomous vehicles will in time save millions of lives and trillions of dollars as I and many other people do when you are eager for the technology the governance and the public perception to move forward fast, but if you look at the humble roundabout as one tiny example of a transportation change, you do wonder if maybe the public perception Hertel just might be the hardest problem for autonomous vehicles that said Remember the survey I mentioned about roundabouts acceptance most people before they were familiar with them were opposed acceptance happened relatively fast and after a year, they probably couldn't even Recall why they were opposed.

[00:44:48]

That's the way a lot of us are with change. We fight it until it's inevitable. Then we accept it and pretend we never had a problem with it in the first place will this happen?.

[00:44:59]

With the roundabouts in America again is Kevin Beresford Lord of the Rings describing around about that contains one of his very favorite Central Islands in Birmingham wedding from really originate Spitfire Island Spitfires shooting up into the sky and spitfire was the British fighter jet. So important to win World War 2 jakiro plant the car plants and it means a lot to me because my mother was a general producing a Spitfire but that one I need anything can go on the blank canvases for these artists and sculptures and thank godness price.

[00:45:48]

You can have a car down the road about a tablet Mike Tyson record with structural. So what's going on in the area or a local artist will put some.

[00:45:59]

Shadow Pines in imagination wants to go that puzzles me why I'm not a dozen price.

[00:46:11]

Maybe in time thanks to all the transportation Geeks who kicked out with us today Kevin barrows for a Jim Brainard. Hecox Mike McBride Zachary Crockett Oliver Cameron. And of course thanks to you for listening without you. We just be talkin in our closet. If you want to hear an older episode of ours about car travel and the dangers there of check out the Perfect Crime episode 165 is about how the laws protecting drivers me and that killing pedestrians often goes unpunished the entire Freakonomics radio catalog is now available on all podcast apps coming up next time on our show.

[00:46:51]

What's a mind game? If you just point out the first day of spring that all of a sudden increases their likelihood of wanting to start pursuing a goal on that date with fresh start fact, is it real does it work?.

[00:47:11]

Fire pits next time until then take care of yourself and if you can someone else to.

[00:47:21]

Freakonomics radio is produced by Stitcher in Brentwood radio. We can be reached at Radio at freakonomics.com. This episode was produced by married to Duke our staff also includes Alison Craig Lowe Mark McCluskey, Greg Griffin, Zack dubinsky, Matt, hickey and Emma Terrell. We had help this week from Jasmine Klinger are theme song is mr. Fortune by The Hitchhiker's all the other music was composed by Luis Guerra. If you want to read transcripts or show notes of any of our show, that's all found at freakonomics.com where you can also find power spin-off podcasts.

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No stupid questions and people are mostly admire. So how is the international or the English roundabout of the Year chosen? Is it a vote among members of your Society? We have a big device, but what I say goes on the president,.

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The Freakonomics Radio Network.

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Picture.