Roundabouts

Roundabouts aka rotundas.

Back in the home country, traffic was always a challenge, if not a nightmare. Where three lanes were built, four lanes of vehicles could be found. There were such animals as rotundas however they were found in trickles and were generally of huge circumferences intersecting major roads. There would normally be a monument or a park inside the rotunda. We have the Welcome Rotunda and the Quezon Memorial Circle. It seemed that the presence of the rotunda was for the landmark rather than to aid the flow of traffic.

Here is Australia, one of the more common road features would be the roundabout or the rotary; in lay (Filipino) man's terms, a small rotunda. Roundabouts are found all over various intersections enabling traffic to flow orderly and smoothly without the need for stop lights. No, there are no statues or monuments within the rotunda, just a slightly raised circle to mark the area not intended for cars.

It is a very good idea, really. And as long as the drivers obey the traffic rules and regulations, there should be no problem.

Upon approaching a roundabout, the rule of thumb is that anyone inside the roundabout has first priority. Everybody travels in a clockwise manner and one should only enter the roundabout if there is no approaching vehicle from the right. (Remember that Australians drive on the left side of the road in right hand drive vehicles. So incoming traffic would normally come from the right.)

As long as everyone is aware of these rules and conventions , people give way to other vehicles and traffic flows smoothly. It is always clear which car has priority over the other.

Now it seems oh so simple in the roads of Australia but I honestly cannot imagine this working in Manila.

I think about the Quezon Memorial Circle where they have adopted the one-way flow of traffic. They removed the middle lanes and let everyone go in a counter-clockwise direction. If you happened to be coming out from Visayas Avenue and wanted to go to UP, you would have to go all the way around through North Avenue, Quezon Avenue, East Avenue, Kalayaan until you hit Philcoa. Perhaps the sheer size of the Circle and the volume of cars passing through Quezon Memorial are enough reasons for chaos to reign. It seems too far-fetched to compare the roundabouts here to the rotundas in the Philippines.

I can't recall if all the streets intersecting Quezon Memorial have stop lights to regulate the entry and exit of vehicles. I am sure there were lights at the major roads - Quezon Ave., East Ave., University Ave., Visayas Ave., but the minor roads seem to have been free for all. Here, even in biggish roundabouts, where they have plants in the middle, there are no stop lights and the roundabout rule applies. It is quite possible that you would wait a couple of minutes before your turn to enter the roundabout came but you can be certain that once you were in, you had priority.

I have come to love roundabouts. Roundabouts allow you to go wherever your want to go. You can go "straight", turn left, turn right, or as we have done several times because we had taken a wrong turn, you can go back where you came from.

They say that people often reach crossroads in their lives. I think I like roundabouts better. They are a tad friendlier and they give you the option to turn your life around. Of course, one has to remember to make a choice because staying in the roundabout will not get you anywhere.