One of the hazards of living in Daybreak is the tourists. We have MANY visitors to our community because of our fantastic amenities, so there are drivers on the road who are gawking at the homes or lake without paying attention to pedestrians or stop signs.

Even worse, when they come to one of our many traffic circles, they don’t know what to do. I have dodged cars going the wrong way on the traffic circle three times in the last two years I’ve lived here and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

For all you beginners, here is how you should drive in a traffic circle.

• You don’t need to stop at the traffic circle: If the traffic circle is empty, you don’t need to stop at the intersection unless there is a stop sign posted. If there is a yield sign, it applies to the cars ENTERING the circle, not the cars within it.

• Traffic circles are ONE WAY: When you enter the circle, you should turn right. If you want to go to the road to your left, you must follow the circle until you reach that road.

• Stay moving within the circle: Too many times, I’ve seen cars stopped dead in the traffic circle, waiting to for an easy merge out of it when they should continue moving and merge out the next time around. This is especially true in the traffic circle by The District.

• Pay attention to the lanes: Many of our traffic circles are multiple lanes. On most of them, the outer lane will be required to exit the traffic circle on the next turn, so if you want to exit the circle later, you should be in an inner lane. On four separate occasions, I have nearly been hit by someone in a lane that was supposed to exit and they have suddenly merged into my lane.

Traffic circles are supposed to be better than stoplights because they slow the flow of traffic. I can agree with that idea, but in practice, they have been a hazard every time Daybreak enjoys a flux of visitors, for example, during the Parade of Homes, summer weekends, and even during the recent Extreme Home Makeover we’ve had here.

If you are still confused, here is a driving video explaining traffic circles:

This video explains it with diagrams, but the rules are for India (they drive on the left side of the road), so the rules are different than in Utah, especially the signaling rules.

Rules of the road via: Roundabout – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia