Considering how much stop signs are overused in North America, this is unreasonable. Either replace many stop signs with yield signs where safe to do so, or allow cyclists to pass through stop signs as if it they were yield signs. Holding momentum is important for cyclists.
Noooooo.
They have those in France and it’s so dangerous! There are so many collisions that happen because of the right of way at intersections.
I’ve driven there and it’s freaking scary.
I think most European countries are designed this way. In my experience it just takes getting used to and is a bit uncomfortable, but it just feels so much more efficient, whether driving or on a bike. It feels unnecessary to have to stop at every block on a neighborhood street when there’s no one around.
And those jurisdictions are what is colloquially known as “stupid”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop
See the section on safety. It’s safer for bicycles to yield at stop signs instead of come to a complete stop. The most dangerous part of cycling is in an intersection, and you’ll spend more time in them when coming to a complete stop every time
It’s hard not to see this as ignorance given how easy it is to look up the great safety record of these laws (i.e. right there on the Wikipedia page).
Have you decided to change your opinion yet, since you’ve had plenty of time to read about and fix your own “stupid” though?
Cars and bicycles are two completely different things, and should have different rules governing them. A car is larger, deadlier, and takes longer to stop than a bicycle. A car going 40-50 kph is traveling with far more force, and won’t be able to stop as fast as a bicycle traveling 20 kph.
It’s like saying cars and planes should follow the same rules. Or even better, cars and semi trucks. There are highway speed signs that state one speed for trucks and one for everyone else. Or certain roads where trucks aren’t allowed to drive on. We already have a tiered approach to motor vehicles, it should extend to bikes as well. Blanket approaches don’t work in our modern world when we have cars, bikes, ebikes, escooters, etc all sharing the same space.
If you’re gonna ride your bicycle on the road, you better stop at a stop sign. Don’t be an idiot.
I mean, I always yield at stop signs, but I am not likely to come to a complete stop on a bike if there is nobody to yield to. Many car drivers don’t either, as any road user is already aware.
“Oh they’re doing it so I can do it to,” said the pile of bones and guts spread out along the intersection.
Cars have a little more protection than a bicyclist for the occupants of the vehicle.
If anything, the fact that cars are more likely to injure another road user than their occupants, is even more reason that they should come to a complete stop, moreso than any other road user.
The “Idaho stop” (red as stop, stop as yield for cyclists) is a thing in several jurisdictions, and research shows it is as safe or safer that way.
Still ought to follow the laws, but there’s reason to want those laws to be different.
As a cyclist, I’ve seen more motorists blow through stop signs than other cyclists, and they are the ones who can kill someone.
Idaho Stops need to come to Canada. Not only have they been proven to be safer, but it makes sense in a dozen different ways.
I’ve sat at red lights (as a cyclist) and the light DOES NOT CHANGE unless a car is waiting at that same light. We’re talking 10+ minutes. Who the hell thinks it’s OK for cyclists to have to sit there indefinitely when no other cars are around, just because of some outdated laws? We need to change with the times!
Ohio allows this. If the red doesn’t detect your bike it you can treat it as a yield
Stop signs should be treated as “yield” and red lights should be treated as “stop”.
meanwhile 4,000 lb vehicles run stop signs in front of fucking daycares in my neighbourhood
This is inherently the problem with (most) cyclists, and why motorists in general don’t like them.
They want it both ways. They want to be a pedestrian when it suits them, when they want to blow stop signs, jump up onto the sidewalk, expect cars to stop for them at crosswalks, and weave through traffic at will. But they ALSO want to be a vehicle when it suits them, when they are sharing a road that doesn’t have a bike lane, for example.
And they seem to think that the motorist should just KNOW when they are being one or the other.
It’s frustrating and annoying. They are a vehicle. They are governed as a vehicle. Suck it up, cyclists.
I find it so tiresome hearing about how cyclists are supposedly more entitled than motorists (or the other way around, since cyclists say the same things about drivers).
Drivers routinely roll through stops, jockey for position, move erratically or dangerously, block crosswalks or bike lanes, distract themselves on their phones, get upset when mildly inconvenienced by having to underspeed behind a cyclist taking the lane for safety, etc.
-
Being entitled and breaking the law to get places faster is universal; I think uou’re just acclimated to drivers doing it.
-
The infrastructure is so car-oriented and bike-hostile that following the law often disadvantages cyclists or puts them at risk. That doesn’t justify, say, biking fast across a crosswalk, but sidewalk-riding on a 4-lane road without bike lanes? IMO it does.
-
There’s bias here in treating the worst cyclist behaviour as being something condoned by cyclists at large. Kind of like if someone said “drivers just want to drag race around town”.
-
No, motorists don’t like them because they are different. That’s it. It’s someone they can place their road rage on.
If that were true, you’d expect car drivers to feel the same way about, for example, motorcycles, rollerbladers, and longboarders… Yet people don’t have the same feelings as they do with cyclists.
Also since when do car drivers have any problem whatsoever applying their road rage to other car drivers? Lol.
Nah, drivers rarely go on the internet to rage about other drivers blowing stop signs, speeding, tailgating, running red lights, or other idiotic things. Cyclists bring out waaaay more emotions in people than other drivers. Just read any cycling thread…like this one.
It goes the other way too, when a cyclist is considering stop sign as a yield then motorist complains that cyclist should behave the same way as cars.
When cyclist behave are riding in the middle of the road because it’s safer for them then motorist complains that they are not supposed to be there.
