The Dangerous Hollister Turbo Roundabout

Introduction

Last weekend, I drove to Pinnacles National Park via Hollister, California. On the way, I encountered “Hollister Turbo Roundabout” a highway which is the first turbo roundabout in California and it was quite different from the one-lane roundabouts I had seen before. It was so confusing that I almost had an accident.

In this blog post, I would like to share my experience and thoughts on this turbo roundabout.

The Dangerous Hollister Turbo Roundabout

I was driving on the Hollister Highway (CA-25) in the early morning around 6:00 AM and it was still completely dark. There were a lot of construction stuff on the road side and I saw blinking yellow traffic lights. It turns out that the blinking yellow traffic lights were reminding the drivers of the turbo roundabout ahead. However, I thought it was alerting the drivers to the construction zone, which has no construction at all in such early morning. There might be a roundabout sign under the blinking yellow light, but I didn’t notice it at all somehow. So I only reduced the speed a little bit but not slow enough to enter the roundabout.

When I got close to the roundabout, I started to realize I was entering a roundabout so I started to break much harder. However, because there are two white lines in front of me and there are direction lines on the two side, I incorrectly stopped at the foremost line, which is actually in the middle of the turbo roundabout.

It was so dangerous that I found a truck stopped at the left side of my car. If the cars are driving very fast in the turbo roundabout, I would probably already have been hit. I panicked a little bit and when I tried to go I don’t know which lane I should go to. I probably have incorrectly changed the lane to the right most one and it was actually not allowed in the turbo roundabout.

I tried to learn how to drive in the Hollister Turbo Roundabout when I returned from Pinnacles National Park. Even if it was in the afternoon and I could see traffic signs and lane markers clearly, I still feel extremely confused about what to do and where I should go. The only things I could do were slowly driving, watching for the cars in the roundabout, and going into the roundabout only if I feel the coming cars are far enough. Fortunately, most of the cars in the Hollister Turbo Roundabout are driving very slowly.

From the YouTube video, we could see how confusing and dangerous the Hollister Turbo Roundabout is.

The ABC7 News reported that the number of crashes in this place nearly quadrupled since the roundabout opened in February of last year but all of them were relatively minor. That the crashes were minor is only because the roundabout slows down the speed of the cars and the drivers cannot drive very fast in the roundabout compared to the straight road, not because the roundabout is safer than the intersection with traffic lights.

Conclusions

Although I did not study civil engineering, because I am also an engineer, I know the idea of implementing a turbo roundabout and placing it on a highway is completely a failure. Even if I can sit down and look at the roundabout for minutes, I still cannot figure out how to drive in it, not to mention the drivers driving on the highway. Does it really worth trading the accident severity for frequency? I don’t think so.

Next time on my trip going south and I will definitely study if I will go through the Hollister Turbo Roundabout so that I can be prepared.

References

• Lessons Learned Designing California’s First Turbo Roundabout
• Number of Crashes at ‘Turbo Roundabout’ In South Bay Quadrupled But Were Overall Less Severe: Data