One of my silliest joys in life is watching people try to figure out the one traffic circle in our town. You all hopefully know the basic principles of a traffic circle. To avoid making a lot of traffic stop for long periods of time at certain, usually well-used, intersections, they have these nifty roadways that keep everyone moving rather smoothly. Unless “everyone” includes a bunch of idiots in cars, which it inevitably does.

We only have one traffic circle in town and so the citizens of Jackson aren’t really sure what to do with it. Granted it is a little more complex than your average traffic circle as one of the exits is actually a driveway to a school, and the other three are sort of oddly spaced out. Unless you read the signs correctly, you might not always know which lane you should be in.

I’ve attempted to recreate the traffic circle below. Forgive it’s rudimentary qualities; I had to do it in Paint as I am at… well not at home, we’ll say that. Each line indicates a different possible option for usage. Now add some elderly folks, some 16 year olds who just learned to drive, and some others who are just generally idiots, and you’ve got quite the recipe for chaos.

Nothing about the roads in this town make much sense to me, but I can at least understand the good intentions with this addition to an otherwise senseless system. It’s not too far from our house, so I drive through it at least twice a day, to and from work. I’ve never once had a problem navigating the circle, but that is definitely not the case for everyone. Much to my enjoyment, I frequently witness people acting like absolute morons as soon as they get anywhere near this section of the road.

The most common mistakes include:
-stopping in the middle of the circle to let someone else in
-using the wrong entrance lane and nearly hitting other cars to correct the mistake
-cutting people off to erroneously change lanes
-driving all the way around the circle because an exit strategy was not obvious
-pulling out in front of other cars because it was assumed they would stop
-stopping at the yield sign even when there is nothing to yield to

But my absolute favorite traffic circle blunder so far is when some poor old lady went the WRONG way in this very much one-way street. Brad and I pulled up next to her and noticed she had her left turn signal on. As far as I know you never turn left into a traffic circle anywhere. We frantically started discussing whether or not she’d follow through with her incorrect intention or if she’d realize her mistake before making the turn. Luckily traffic in the circle moves pretty slow, so there is generally no real danger if someone screws up. Therefore, we were practically cheering when she did indeed turn the wrong way.

We drove slowly in order to stay nearby and watch this whole thing unfold. Everyone else was equally bewildered, so traffic pretty much stopped while this lady drove clockwise around the circle despite the dozens of signs indicating that was exactly the wrong thing to do. Eventually, after much confusion, she did get herself out at one of the exit lanes, nobody was hurt, and traffic resumed as normal.

Brad and I find great joy in observing these mishaps, even actively hoping for a repeat of the wrong-way episode. Something about human idiocy is pure entertainment. I may have been in a bad mood this morning, but after watching someone come to a complete stop in the middle of the circle and waiting there, indicator blinking, for another car to pull out in front of them, I felt so much better.