I have driven through Belgrade’s four-way stop at Broadway and Main approximately 11,000 times in my life, and not once has it required a circular intervention imported from Europe.

A four-way stop works on a simple principle: you stop, you look, you go. If the other person got there first, they go first. If you both got there at the same time, the person on the right goes. If neither of you can remember who got there first, you do the little hand wave. This system has functioned without incident for decades, and by “without incident” I mean with a manageable number of incidents.

Now the city wants to spend $3.2 million to replace it with a roundabout, which is a fancy word for driving in a circle until you figure out where you’re going. I have been to cities with roundabouts. I have watched grown adults orbit the same loop three times because they missed their exit. I have seen a man in a Ford F-350 attempt to turn left by going right and nearly clip a Prius that had no business being in the roundabout in the first place.

The four-way stop is honest. It tells you exactly what to do: stop. A roundabout asks you to merge, yield, signal, and make split-second decisions at 15 miles per hour while someone behind you honks because you hesitated for one second. That’s not traffic management. That’s a personality test.

I’ve gathered 700 signatures. I’ll gather 700 more. Belgrade does not need to be Bozeman, and Bozeman does not need to be Portland.

Gerald Fencepost has lived in Belgrade since 1991 and has strong feelings about most intersections.