The roundabout, also known as the traffic circle, is a popular road device for controlling traffic. It doesn’t appear so much in the United States, but there are a few about. Like in Texas, where one young driver decided to see how long he could drive around one without stopping.
Today, I spoke to a young man behind the Twitter account DFWStormChasers. Late last week, he drew plenty of attention by asking a simple question. “How long can you drive in a roundabout before you get the cops called on you?” he mused. But he didn’t just ask the question—he actually went and found out.
At this point I’ll say I don’t condone this kind of behavior. At the same time, it’s a question that demanded and answer. So how long can you get away with this? As it turns out—a damn sight longer than you might think. Don’t try this at home.
Yes I tested this
(Breakcore cause funny) https://t.co/K5zhSHDCyp pic.twitter.com/WdVh5o77Jo— DFWStormChasers (@DFWStormChasing) October 11, 2024
Spin Me Right Round
We don’t have the kind of fully-certified timing that you might get with a Nürburgring record. What we do have is a dashcam video with a time stamp. On his first attempt, this young driver who shall remain nameless headed out in his truck and managed to loop a roundabout in Arlington, Texas for over 20 minutes until he was stopped. “Someone was angry at me the first time and called [the] police department,” he told me. “I left before anything happened.”
Of course, it didn’t stop there. The video quickly racked up likes on Twitter, with DFWStormChasers laying down the gauntlet. The challenge was simple—10,000 likes, and he’d try for an hour. The video soared to over 150,000 likes, so he drove out and went for it again.
I made it 50 minutes this time.
The police thought it was "reckless driving" and they received "multiple complaints"
Having fun is apparently illegal https://t.co/gn0OJA1Ycv pic.twitter.com/E5cj0hZL9Q— DFWStormChasers (@DFWStormChasing) October 14, 2024
The second time around, he says he made it a full 50 minutes until the police showed up and pulled him over. By the sounds of things, they were less than pleased. “The second time at least three people called [the police],” he explains. “Cops threatened me with disturbing the peace, being a public nuisance, speeding, disrupting [the] flow of traffic, and felony reckless driving.” Quite the potential rap sheet, though apparently the only actual charge laid was a speeding offense for going three miles per hour over the speed limit. Beyond that, the police also had another punishment in mind. “The cops made me call my dad and said all of those things to him, trying to get me in trouble,” the young driver explained.
Arlington police were apparently eager to discourage this activity in future. “I only attempted twice, as the City of Arlington apparently ‘has me on file’ if I get caught doing it again,” the driver told me. “I really want to, but as I’m only 17, getting into a court battle with the police department over being silly is not on my to-do list.” That sounds like a sane choice—judges rarely look kindly upon people that intentionally go out of their way to cause problems.
Things I was threatened with:
Public endangerment
Felony reckless driving
Disturbing the peace
Being a public nuisance
SpeedingThings I actually did:
Go 3 over the limitThanks Arlington PD
— DFWStormChasers (@DFWStormChasing) October 15, 2024
The video of the second attempt racked up a further 88,000 likes on Twitter. Through the social media site’s Premium program, the driver is hoping to make some money back on his short lived notoriety.
Is this specifically a crime? I couldn’t find anything specific in Texas legislation about intentionally looping a roundabout over and over again. I have reached out to TxDOT for more information and will update this article accordingly.
Ultimately, it’s possible to argue about this, but regardless—police can always find something to charge you with in a case like this. In any case, 50 minutes is a big achievement in what is, fundamentally, a disruptive pastime that should not be encouraged. The record isn’t official by any means, because nobody tracks these things and the early part of the video is corrupted. Still, that’s the number we have to go on.
This has Happened Before
Would you believe that there is nothing new under the sun? I did some further research, and found out that this question has been asked previously. Australian outlet Drive.com.au reported on the matter earlier this year after a Twitter post from American comedian Tommy Bayer drew some serious attention online.
Tommy didn’t have the answer, but that led me to the exploits of another comedian—one Dave Dugan, of Carmel, Indiana. As covered by WTHR in 2022, Dugan drove a full 1,001 laps around the Jackson Circle on Horseferry Road, which took him 4 hours and 29 minutes. He was allegedly trying to beat an Australian record of 4 hours and 52 seconds, which he did so quite handily. Dugan claimed this was a world record, and had undertaken the feat to raise money for the Cancer Support Community charity.
Doing this is not exactly dangerous, whether you’re doing it for 50 minutes or well over four hours. Still, it is a great way to piss off other drivers and make enemies in your neighborhood. This young teenage driver has shown us how long you can get away with this for, and that should answer all of our questions. Now we know, this silly pastime should end here, for all our sakes.
Image credit: Chuttersnap via Unsplash license
Kudos to this hero and the patience of the police. Several different women have threatened to end relationships with me after ONE SINGLE complete loop. I can barely imagine the ecstasy of unlimited laps.
What is the speed limit on a roundabout?
If he drove the posted speed limit wouldn’t traffic still flow since that’s how traffic circles work?
Does this mean that people were calling the police because they didn’t know how to merge?
Definitely did this at 17 as well. Luckily this was before everyone had cell phones, me and a friend took our two cars around a rural roundabout for probably 20 minutes or so laughing our heads off the whole time. We made sure to slow down and let people enter and exit without us causing significant delays, and after the 20 minutes we just left. No cops, no issues, just a fun afternoon haha.
Since you infested me with this earworm, I’m gonna inflict it on all y’all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk3HBb0mh5Q
Also: “You are logged in as Mad Maxine” – I’m actually Gubbin.
We’re undergoing a big renovation to a major highway were I live and the topic of roundabouts vs traffic circles has come up. Apparently they are not the same, but similar.
Roundabouts are designed to slow traffic through intersections without always requiring a stop, just a yield, and you don’t change lanes to exit the roundabout – the exit is the same number of lanes as the roundabout.
Traffic circles can require a full stop before entering, but don’t always, are larger for higher speeds and may require a lane change to exit – the exit is one lane only.
I’ve done this with my kids before. But only a few rounds. They got a kick out of it.
Look kids! Parliament!
Just trying to get left!
So, I was taught that you should leave a cars length between you and the car in front of you for every 10 MPH you are traveling. Otherwise, you risk running into the car in front of you.
How fast would you have to be driving in a roundabout before you risk running into yourself?
this sounds like one of those peaky word problems on the math quiz
pesky not peaky
This kid should try the one in Waco.
“Cops threatened me with disturbing the peace, being a public nuisance, speeding, disrupting [the] flow of traffic, and felony reckless driving.”
As a middle-aged man with no kids and hip with today’s youths and youths-related culture, I think I can authoritatively speak on their behalf. This is one of the many reasons the young people of today don’t like the fuzz. I’m not trying to turn this into a cop-hating post but, c’mon. Threatening felony reckless driving? For legally driving in a circle?* I doubt they would actually charge him with that and were most likely just discouraging him, but for fuck’s sake.
*3mph over the limit. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?
Not me. Not if I were the man.
NIMBY: “He’s driving in a circle! Police! DO SOMETHING!”
Me: “Well, I’d like to, ma’am, but he’s too damn good. Let him drive, boys. Let the man drive!”
I agree this was excessive, but I also can see how he could be causing issues. Roundabouts don’t often have a posted limit for the circle itself, so he was likely supposedly going 3 over the limit of one of the roads coming into it, and if he’s going round and round at 38mph, he very likely could have been impeding the flow of traffic or otherwise actually causing problems here. We only have one side of the story. I did this as a kid without incident, but we were going slow and making sure to not be dicks about it and made sure people could come in and out without us ever being in the way. Not sure that’s the case here. It could be, and if so then I 100% agree with you, but I’m not ready to draw any conclusions.
Okay but what if you’re in the roundabout b/c it’s a 6-lane monstrosity in a European city and you’re weeping and terrified, completely clueless as to how you got into the innermost lane, or how to escape it? What about that? Are they going to ticket you for crying too hard while driving (if that were a real ticket, I would KNOW)?
I would think the public nuisance charge would be the most appropriate if he’s just driving normally.
He needs to redo his experiment but be doing full-on, tail hanging out, smoky, drifting burnouts through the roundabout. I suspect the results would be a bit different.
I think Dodge already did that in a commercial.
oh look kids, Parliament…Big Ben…Parliament…Big Ben…Parliament…Big Ben…Parliament…Big Ben…
“I can’t get left….”
If you happen to find yourself in London and your name is Clark, I wouldn’t recommend this.
I’d love to get a roundabout answer on why I intermittently can/can’t log in.
Site backend change. I had to clear my browser cache of any mention of autopian and memberful to get logged in and stay logged in.
I suspect some circular logic causing issues.
I’d say call IT, but then you’ll just get the runaround.
Maybe we can circle back to it later.
IT is always using circular logic.
You’ll wait so long for an answer that mountains will come out of the sky and just stand there.
This is the level of investigative journalism that I’m here for
I haven’t done this with a traffic circle but I’ve definitely taken more than one circuit in a clover leaf just for fun which may or may not have also involved exceeding the posted speed limit by 3mph or some other value.
We did this once back in the day on the cloverleaf at I-90 & I-290 in Schaumburg, Illinois. We just kept taking the 270-degree ramps around and around for like half an hour. Probably did at least a dozen “laps”.
Now it says I’m logged in as 10001010. Including his avatar. But on my post, it’s me. Very strange.
Wait, if you’re me, then who am I? o.O
Part of the collective consciousness. We’re all being assimilated a-la Borg.
We will add your technological and automotive distinctiveness to our own. Resistance has a 60/40 chance, so, eh. We are the Autopiborg.
Your brown, stick shift diesel turbo-wagon will be assigned to you shortly.
I don’t know – third base!
I thought about trying this at the Golf Rd traffic circle. It’s busy and big enough that I don’t think anyone would notice.
Cumberland Circle, AKA Suicide Circle? Oh hell I did that as a tennager going to McGreevey’s. First time I ever did a circle, and with a half-dozen drunken teenagers in my car. Almost bought the farm.
At least that one has stoplights!
Cant believe we never thought of this! Lots of acceleration, hard braking, pulling G’s…over and over!