MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — More roundabouts are rolling out across Manatee and Sarasota counties. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) said it is an effort to make roads safer.
"I think a lot of drivers don't know how to use them, so that makes it a little more difficult, but if you know how to use them, they can certainly get things moving more safely," driver David Pyle said.
FDOT said roundabouts can actually reduce fatal crashes by nearly 90%.
"When you're going around a roundabout, you're looking at sideswipe crashes and rear-end crashes, and those are the crashes that have a much less incidence of serious injury," Patricia Pichette, overseeing District 1 for FDOT, explained.
Pichette said roundabouts are relatively new to Florida but that decades of research prove they are a safer alternative to standard intersections.
"When you go to a standard intersection, single lane, four directions, you have 24 points of conflict or opportunities to crash into another vehicle. When you have a single-lane roundabout, four directions, you have four points of conflict or four opportunities to crash into somebody else. That's pretty amazing," Pichette added.
Pichette said roundabouts will continue to be installed across Manatee and Sarasota counties in hopes of reducing the number of crashes on the road.
"I think people will get used to them. If they want to drive, they'll have to use them, and it's a learning curve like anything else. Once you get good at it then you're more confident when you go in," Pyle said.
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