The 10-year anniversary of the opening of the first roundabout in Bowling Green is on the horizon in 2024. Plans were announced in 2010 and the roundabout at the intersection of U.S. 31-W/Nashville Road, University Boulevard and Loving Way opened Aug. 8, 2014.

Bowling Green residents were and are still skeptical about them. Roundabouts are still a running joke whenever I post about a wreck in the circular monsters.

Prior to 2014, my favorite experience in a roundabout was in 1983 when my good friend, the late John “J.J.” Johnson, drove his dad’s Caprice Estate station wagon, loaded with 15 Ft. Knox High School buddies, 33 times around the traffic circle on the Army base before the military police pulled us over.

My least favorite experience with roundabouts was more recent in 2017 when visiting my son in Carmel, Indiana, which is internationally known for its roundabout network. Since the late 1990s, Carmel has been building and replacing signalized intersections with roundabouts. Carmel now has more than 138 roundabouts, more than any other city in the United States.

There were so many of them on every stretch of road I don’t think I ever was able to get above 30 miles per hour during my entire stay. It looked like they just stuck them randomly in the middle of every 1,000 feet of blacktop.

Which brings me to Bowling Green’s roundabout situation. We are no Carmel, but since 2014 they have been popping up faster than a tow truck can pull a vehicle out of a downtown parking lot.

I was recently involved in a roundabout incident where a young driver was confused about how they work. She was in an outside lane when she needed to be in an inside lane resulting in a little of NASCAR “rubbing is racing.”

Quoted in a previous Daily News article, Wes Watt, public information officer at the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 3 said, “the advisory speed in the roundabout is 20 mph or less, though the speed limit on the approach to the roundabout is 35 mph. You know, it’s easy to get confused if you’ve never been in one before. It’s important that drivers don’t stop while in the roundabout,” he said.

“It needs to be a constant movement, a constant flow of traffic,” Watt said. “That’s what is great about a roundabout, and that’s what makes them work. Vehicles within the roundabout have the right of way, so those entering the roundabout need to yield to them and watch for an opportunity to enter traffic.”

That brings me to my thoughts on the four kinds of Bowling Green drivers that are found in our roundabouts; the gasser, the camper, pokey, and the floater.

The gasser is the “Katy bar the door” driver who hits the circle at top speed regardless of vehicles already in the traffic pattern. They are on a mission and you had better stay out of their way. They slash through like Western Kentucky mens’ basketball senior guard Khristian Lander slashing through the lane for a layup.

The camper is the most common driver you see, stopped at the yield sign, waiting for hell to freeze over before hitting the gas. Usually it is an older motorist waiting for the roundabout to empty before proceeding. Knuckles and forehead are all that are visible through the windshield.

The pokey can’t make a decision so they stop, start and lurch forward trying time it just right to jump in like trying to jump into the old Double Dutch jump rope game kids played before they had their faces buried in smartphones.

The last is the floater, like the one that scraped me, who can’t pick a lane and weaves in and out of the circular traffic like a Western student bobbing and weaving downtown during a weekend pub crawl.

Don’t get me wrong, I much prefer a roundabout to an old school intersection, which is more frustrating and wastes more time. Traffic engineers will quote stats saying the roundabout is safer, but I am not quite sold on that.

Former Mayor Bruce Wilkerson had the right idea nearly 10 years ago when he put a black helmet on his head at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Bowling Green’s first roundabout. “I’m ready,” he said, after donning what could have been construed as a crash helmet.

– Daily News General Manager Joe Imel can be reached at (270) 783-3273 or via email at joe.imel@bgdailynews.com.