Going Round in Circles

It's been two weeks since my last post. Normally I just wait for a suitable story to come along and then I comment on it. But, since it has been two weeks, I've gone out looking further.

I've found a very good American site, Autoguide.com, with probably the best car news section on the Web. They had a good story yesterday about how the LAPD are asking that celebrities tweet road congestion news.

Twits.

They also make some reference to a couple of Star Trek actors which went completely over my head. Levar Burton played a blind man who could see with the help of a futuristic hairband and Wil Wheaton played an annoyingly precocious boy and then went on to parody himself brilliantly in The Big Bang Theory. But I don't get the traffic news angle.

I then found this story in Autocar about the new Porsche 911. It was something I was going to comment on in March when I saw this picture on the CAR&Driver siteheralding the first spy-shot of the new Porsche 911. I mean what the hell is the point of a spy shot of a Porsche 911!? Everyone knows what it will look like - every other Porsche 911!!

And the story in Autocar goes on to prove it. I'm sure that under the skin, the new 911 is very different to the outgoing model but on the outside, you won't know, when one screams past you on the motorway, just how old it is.

The big story will be when they finally make it look like something different, like when Volvo stopped making cars that looked like the 144, or when Land Rover change the Defender - it is happening soon and it will be the end of an era.

But, the story I have chosen for my July 1st Post - is from the BBC Website. It is entitled "Is the British roundabout conquering the US?" I drove around a couple in New England on my first trip Stateside in '92 and I couldn't get to grips with going around them the wrong way. I was very glad that they were very rare. Strangely enough, I never had any problems after that when I drove around Majorca - another drive-on-the-right kinda place.

The article is about how the city of Carmel, Indiana, is ripping out traditional intersections with traffic lights and replacing them with good old-fashioned European-style roundabouts.

The locals seem positive - traffic moves better and fuel is not wasted although this idiot in Georgia has a different view. Any person who will willingly be quoted as saying, "The universe is out of whack when roundabouts are constructed and the economy suffers. Not one, but two industries are suddenly out of business. There’s no longer any need for stop signs or traffic lights. I ask you, in this economic climate, is this a time to put all those people out of work?" is clearly a few sandwiches short of a picnic. I bet he believes the nonsense Fox News put out.

Maybe if he had a few driving lessons he'd be less scared of them.

It's not like the Americans will ever have to deal with this: