Buriram Expats
Buriram Province - General Category => Travel forum => Topic started by: urleft on October 12, 2015, 03:21:53 PM
-
Be prepared, traffic lights are being installed at the Elephant Circle.
Not operational yet, but typically new traffic lights in Buriram just become fully operational without a burn in period (e.g. flashing yellow for a week).
-
About time aswell.. The Dumb bastards don't even know how it's supposed to work.. Cutting across from the inside lane to turn right.. Boils my piss everyday that roundabout
-
Yes, the elephant circle is almost always a driving adventure.
What has surprised me is that I have not seen an accident there. I figure it must be common.
-
I've seen many near misses!!
-
I've seen many near misses!!
I caused several of them.......... by making the mistake of following the Thai highway code.
No other b4stard did !!!
-
Is this a daft Thai roundabout where the traffic on the roundabout has to stop to give way to traffic coming onto the roundabout, thus causing chaos? The one at the clock tower in Aran seems like this to me...
-
No-one gives way to anyone!!
-
An interesting decision by someone to install these lights. Generally, I think the Elephant Roundabout does pretty well.
It keeps traffic flowing in all directions, albeit a little messy in the circle, and like Urleft says, I've never seen any accident here. The only time it gets really messy is after the football finishes at i-Mobile Stadium once each week.
I do like the "left turn slip roads". I reckon they are a beaut idea, and something not often seen at Aussie roundabouts.
To get some elephant close up photos and do the "touristy thing", I once walked over the road into the middle of the roundabout. Now ... that was an experience !! It's actually an interesting statue and well maintained gardens up close.
Putting traffic lights here will no doubt make it a more controlled roundabout, so I guess a bit safer. Question is ... will the motorcy's have enough patience to sit still for 90 seconds ?
-
The Dolphin roundabout in Pattaya is now closed off on one side so it is no longer a 'roundabout'
-
An interesting decision by someone to install these lights. Generally, I think the Elephant Roundabout does pretty well.
It keeps traffic flowing in all directions, albeit a little messy in the circle, and like Urleft says, I've never seen any accident here. The only time it gets really messy is after the football finishes at i-Mobile Stadium once each week.
I do like the "left turn slip roads". I reckon they are a beaut idea, and something not often seen at Aussie roundabouts.
To get some elephant close up photos and do the "touristy thing", I once walked over the road into the middle of the roundabout. Now ... that was an experience !! It's actually an interesting statue and well maintained gardens up close.
Putting traffic lights here will no doubt make it a more controlled roundabout, so I guess a bit safer. Question is ... will the motorcy's have enough patience to sit still for 90 seconds ?
Only if the BiB are in permanent attendance!!
-
An interesting decision by someone to install these lights. Generally, I think the Elephant Roundabout does pretty well.
It keeps traffic flowing in all directions, albeit a little messy in the circle, and like Urleft says, I've never seen any accident here. The only time it gets really messy is after the football finishes at i-Mobile Stadium once each week.
I do like the "left turn slip roads". I reckon they are a beaut idea, and something not often seen at Aussie roundabouts.
To get some elephant close up photos and do the "touristy thing", I once walked over the road into the middle of the roundabout. Now ... that was an experience !! It's actually an interesting statue and well maintained gardens up close.
Putting traffic lights here will no doubt make it a more controlled roundabout, so I guess a bit safer. Question is ... will the motorcy's have enough patience to sit still for 90 seconds ?
Interesting, no one here has yet to claim to see an accident at the circle. Kind of backs up Smooth's point that while messy, it works.
My first thought upon seeing the lights was this will cause delays. Just about every traffic light in Buriram is set up to control flow one at a time (which I think is kind of stupid). The only ones that I can think of that allows traffic flow both ways are the Jira road bus station light and the recent light west of Home Pro (and that one is only Half done).
-
An interesting decision by someone to install these lights. Generally, I think the Elephant Roundabout does pretty well.
It keeps traffic flowing in all directions, albeit a little messy in the circle, and like Urleft says, I've never seen any accident here. The only time it gets really messy is after the football finishes at i-Mobile Stadium once each week.
I do like the "left turn slip roads". I reckon they are a beaut idea, and something not often seen at Aussie roundabouts.
To get some elephant close up photos and do the "touristy thing", I once walked over the road into the middle of the roundabout. Now ... that was an experience !! It's actually an interesting statue and well maintained gardens up close.
Putting traffic lights here will no doubt make it a more controlled roundabout, so I guess a bit safer. Question is ... will the motorcy's have enough patience to sit still for 90 seconds ?
Interesting, no one here has yet to claim to see an accident at the circle. Kind of backs up Smooth's point that while messy, it works.
My first thought upon seeing the lights was this will cause delays. Just about every traffic light in Buriram is set up to control flow one at a time (which I think is kind of stupid). The only ones that I can think of that allows traffic flow both ways are the Jira road bus station light and the recent light west of Home Pro (and that one is only Half done).
As you approach the Jira lights, with Rajabhat University on your left, traffic on the inside lane may proceed at all times regardless of the colour of the lights.
-
Urleft.... How can a Roundabout work when nobody knows who to give way too?? It Doesn't work at all, the reason you don't see any Accidents is because every fucker blocks the oncoming Traffic who they are supposed to give way too so then it becomes one big mess.. Go play on that Rounabout for one hour then come back and comment after your blood pressure has lowered... It's great News and badly needed that they are now putting lights on it... If you have a cam in your car then go do 30 minutes around it at about 5pm and post the video on here ;-)
-
Urleft.... How can a Roundabout work when nobody knows who to give way too?? It Doesn't work at all, the reason you don't see any Accidents is because every fucker blocks the oncoming Traffic who they are supposed to give way too so then it becomes one big mess.. Go play on that Rounabout for one hour then come back and comment after your blood pressure has lowered... It's great News and badly needed that they are now putting lights on it... If you have a cam in your car then go do 30 minutes around it at about 5pm and post the video on here ;-)
Because I have never seen an accident there or had to wait over 30 seconds to enter.
However, when I approach the circle I tell my TW to sit back and don't block the mirrors (she would block them if I did not say something). I treat it as a very dangerous area. But a Smooth said, it seems to work because most people view it as dangerous and the other are clueless that they are stupid (but being avoided by others watching out for them).
And yes, I have a few near misses, and yell at some A$$hole at least twice a week, but I would rather it stay how it is than to add lights.
-
Personally I don't care one way or the other whether traffic lights are installed at this roundabout. If the authorities have decided to put lights in .... so be it.
However messy the situation is within the circle, at least the approach roads seem to flow reasonably well, and that's the sole reason for roundabouts.
I do foresee considerable delays at these approach roads after the lights become operational.
This is because the roundabout is quite big.
It takes some time for a vehicle to travel right around the circle to their exit road, so there will need to be a significent delay between light changes, just to clear the circle completely of previous traffic.
When your light eventually turns green, you'd like to hope that the roundabout has no slow traffic still circulating from another entry point.
It will take some clever sequencing of the lights to make this work ok. Like all new things, it'll take some time for everybody to get used to it.
The Elephant Roundabout statue was erected in 1996. Anyone been here longer than that ? What was at this intersection prior to the roundabout ? Probably a whole lot less traffic. Maybe the ring road did not exist ?
-
Was only a few years ago that a road to the circle was only 2 lane. Admin posted some vids:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyQYV1eGBlA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjgUolWik84
-
Agree with Smooth2, Good sequencing will be the key and I think therein lies the problem. I suspect there will be lengthy delays both in driving through and waiting ( possibly indefinitely ) for the road authorities to get the sequencing right. Time will tell but I'm glad I don't have to travel through there to often.
-
Well the lights were operational today, as predicted no burn in period. The lights operate in a counter-clockwise (opposite traffic flow) pattern and it takes just under 2 minutes from red until green again.
Other than waiting, the flow was very smooth.
-
Putting traffic lights on a roundabout was an admission of defeat when I was a traffic engineer. This has to be one of the best organised and designed roundabouts in Thailand yet the fact that the road safety council or whatever it's called confines its activities to telling the police to do more checks, then there's no hope. Anybody seen any Thai road safety spots on TV recently? In three years I only found one, I'd like to be able to show one to my granddaughter. Plenty of stuff about bad roads most days. I believe there is a stop line before entering into the roundabout indicating that people on the thing have right of way?
I find that Thais do very well considering that most of them didn't grow up being driven around by their parents and grandparents f*ing and blinding there way through traffic. Buffalo cart mentality.
I have always found that most Thais drive very hesitantly on roundabouts, they don't know what they are supposed to do. Whose fault is that? Thais with 3rd class insurance will tend to give way quicker than most, so despite them having battered old trucks they won't insist on having right of way .....
-
It just might work if the Thais understood what a red light means.I was a fair distance away from them when they changed to red,the 3 cars & one lorry all carried on as though they weren't there!
-
BTW, right U-Turns are now legal at the lights.
-
I've been through them a couple of times now and they seem to work Ok. Not the delays I expected. Now, if only the Thais knew how to utilise the roundabout lanes and not either take the outside even if going full circle or taking the middle and cutting out at the last moment, we will be getting so where.
-
Exactly Freddy.. My lights went to Green and I was no more than 10 cars back but they still managed to fu@k it up before I got through.. They turned to Red so I turned left and did a U Turn and did it that way
-
I was waiting for the light at the Elephant Circle today, the cars entering in your front view are the you cue that you are next. So watched them, however, rather than my light turning green it turned flashing red, first I have seen that. Everyone proceeded anyway.