But the number of injuries as decreased and police said that's the intent of a roundabout: to help traffic flow while lessening the number of injury crashes.
"I think it has a lot to do with people not being able to drive through a roundabout. I've seen them go the wrong way. I've seen people stop in the middle of the roundabout," said Ryan Dotson, co-owner of Jet's Pizza on Main Street.
So I'd say they're working, people just aren't used to the concept yet.
Another issue which is rarely discussed is that the concept of yielding and the yield sign hasn't been around forever. It wasn't until the 1960s that they came into common usage, and even then it was generally used for high speed merging on freeways, not on slower neighborhood streets. We have a whole generation of drivers on the road today who were never taught the correct way to yield, and thus many of them treat yield signs as stop signs because that's all they ever learned about when getting their license.
This combined with the idea that one must proceed through the intersection at 15-20mph instead of 35 mph requires a large learning curve for some folks. I've also heard that some people get disoriented in roundabouts and don't know which exit to take so they just stop in the middle. As I said though, things will work out just fine. Anytime there is a major roadway change, there are likely to be incidents.