My friend and inspiration in planning, Bob Giordano, sent me an email the other day about the relative safety of roundabouts. At a dinner party the other day some friends were talking about how roundabouts compare to lighted intersections for safety.
These stats come from a traffic engineer in Melbourne. That's practically a hop skip and a jump from Auckland. Okay, so they don't exactly compare the same time periods, but the difference in numbers is striking...
Pedestrian accidents at ~2,500 signaled intersections in Melbourne between 2002 and 2006:
- Fatal: 27
- Serious injury requiring hospitalization: 614
- Other medical: 701
Pedestrian accidents at > 4,000 roundabouts in Melbourne from 1996 to 2000:
- Fatal: 0
- Serious injury requiring hospitalization: 18
- Other medical: 39
The lesson here? Roundabouts are cool.
