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Traffic Optimization: Cyclists Should Roll Past Stop Signs, Pause At Red Lights
Lasrick writes: "Joseph Stromberg at Vox makes a good case for changing traffic rules for bicyclists so that the 'Idaho stop' is legal. The Idaho stop allows cyclists to treat stop signs as yields and red lights as stop signs, and has created a safer ride for both cyclists and pedestrians. 'Public health researcher Jason Meggs found that after Idaho started allowing bikers to do this in 1982, injuries resulting from bicycle accidents dropped. When he compared recent census data from Boise to Bakersfield and Sacramento, California — relatively similar-sized cities with comparable percentages of bikers, topographies, precipitation patterns, and street layouts — he found that Boise had 30.5 percent fewer accidents per bike commuter than Sacramento and 150 percent fewer than Bakersfield.' Oregon was considering a similar law in 2009, and they made a nice video illustrating the Idaho Stop that is embedded in this article."
"Boise... 150 percent fewer than Bakersfield." How'd they manage that?
IAAC (I Am A Cyclist). However I think that people who treat riding a bike as if they own the road are asking for trouble.
It doesn't matter if you SHOULD have right of way. It matters if someone will see you and stop (and not run you over). When you come up to any dangerous intersection (or any intersection) you should slow down, look to make sure you're not going to get plowed into, and THEN go.
As a cyclist, you might be going 30 KPH easily, but you're much easier to miss for a motorist because you are so small, and you might come at an odd direction (most people aren't used to making sure there's no cyclists on the shoulder).
There's a classic trollish article for you.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
How 'bout ticketing the jerks who disrupt traffic by rolling through intersections, break up the 30-bike pelotons, and otherwise make them actually obey the law? Maybe they wouldn't have so mny accidents if the riders weren't abnoxious.
If it had been motorcyclists, rather than bicyclists that tailgated the SoCal guy and hit him when he stopped, there would never have been the travesty of justice as his murder conviction.
Stop sign: Slow down, low both/all ways, proceed if clear. Otherwise follow normal traffic rules.
Yellow light: Stop unless you're already in the intersection
Red light: Stop and don't go until your turn in normal traffic
Outliers: Crosswalk: Proceed unless there is a walker. Stop then proceed otherwise.
Flashing yellow: Slow down, low both/all ways, proceed if clear
Flashing red: treat like stop sign.
Pretend like you are new to a bike and you will be much safer and people will hate you so much less. One thing you can do, unless you are a very serious cyclist, is avoid getting the pedals which require cycling shoes. If one is not clipped in, imo, one is less likely to break laws and be a douche about existing ones. For people riding 50+ miles a week, I can understand why they want them. However those are not the people who cause problems for everyone else (in my experience).
Oh, I read the article. I just don't see treating a stop as a yield is a safe idea. I am a professional driver trainer, so perhaps my opinion is clouded as to their reasoning. And I think it will open a big can of legal worms as an aside.
Also the cities are not comparable, which in my opinion, invalidates the data.
Idaho is cold in the winter, (I live in Washington State, right next door.) Bakersfield and Sacramento are not.
This of course, is just my opinion.
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As a pedestrian, I fail to see why having two-wheeled idiots blasting through red lights is safer for me. Especially since their view (if they were looking) and mine are likely to be obstructed by the cars & vans they're overtaking (usually on the wrong side).
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I didn't know that cyclists stopped for stop signs anyway. I was in Cape Cod, which has some great bike trails (my daughter and I use them). I was driving at the time though, stopped where the bike trail crosses the road, looked around, saw nobody, and proceeded. Somebody went flying across, and the only saving grace was that he swerved to avoid a collision (and I hit the brakes of course). There was a stop sign on the bike path, but at the speed he was going he couldn't have stopped or slowed down for it.
I bike, though not for commuting, and there are a few rules you have to follow. Yes, it's a pain to stop once you've got some speed up, but it's better than getting killed. I'm not saying most cyclists do this, but I felt like blowing off some steam it.
As for the Idaho law, I'm not sure it would work everywhere. What does yield mean? You're supposed to slow down, but by how much? For some cyclists it means glance around quickly before flying through the intersection. As it is, most cyclists don't completely stop at a stop sign, including me, but you've got to use some judgement. Clear view of the intersecting road? Maybe slowing down enough is ok. Blind corner or something? Stop all the way. And the only way to know an intersecting road can be seen clearly is if you've ridden through that area before.
As for comparing Boise to Bakersfield and Sacramento, how about looking at Boise before and after the law changed? Did it actually change anybody's behavior anyway? Has anybody even heard of a cyclist getting a ticket for something like this?
So, have you ridden a bicycle in a commuting type situation? I've read before that converting many stop signs to yield signs, even for cars, would save all sorts of energy without significant increases in accidents.
With a bicycle it's all about energy conservation. When I'm biking it takes me significantly longer to get up to speed, and my top speed is still well below that of the vast, vast majority of cars.
As such, I typically have much longer to assess an intersection before I reach it, my stopping distance is extremely short, but if you make me stop it extends the time I'll be in the intersection when I DO cross significantly. If I'm allowed to use a stop sign as a yield, I'll attempt to time my passage such that I'll cross near my maximum speed, clearing the intersection expediently. Being through quicker reduces the chances I'll be involved in an accident there.
As a bonus, this way I'm less in driver's way, making me less likely to piss them off.
I don't read AC A human right
I use a bicycle as my primary means of transport year-round, in Sweden.
The main issue I have is that I often have to slow down not just to compensate for road conditions as such but also for motorists who don't realize that even with studded tires a cyclist might not want to ride as aggressively in winter as they do in summer (by "aggressively" I mean more "trusting others not to run you down after they've clearly seen you" than "break the law", in summer my brakes work flawlessly and if Mrs Soccer Mom or Mr Middle Management in their late-model Volvo decide to suddenly try to bully me out of the way I can hit the brakes or accelerate quickly, in winter such aggressive moves will cause me to fall and get run over by the idiot in question so I ride much more defensively which seems to annoy a lot of motorists).
FYI, I tend to stick to bicycle paths when possible but some have been taken over by pedestrians (who have the right of way on bike paths here in Sweden, "yay") to the point where it's faster and mostly safer to ride on a parallel street than zigzag between pedestrians who are walking four abreast and paying no attention to cyclists and other times the bike paths were clearly laid out by someone who doesn't cycle him-/herself and doesn't realize that looping a bike path around an entire city block is likely to be an unpopular move.
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" perhaps my opinion is clouded as to their reasoning"
Their reasoning is that cyclists don't obey the rules anyway, so why not legalize the behavior so they have one more way to bitch about cars not yielding to them.
Seriously, I live near a university town, and cyclists are terrible about obeying traffic laws, they'll glide through stop signs, ride the sidewalks when convenient, etc. Then they'll turn around and complain that cars don't treat them as equals on the roadway. Well, you can't have it both ways, if you want to use the right-of-way, you need to follow the same rules as everyone else. I have no sympathy for the self-righteous assholes. (not all, but a very large and visible number behave that way)
If it's safe for a bike to glide through stopsigns or treat all stoplights as signs, then it's safe for motor vehicles to do the same. In fact, it's recognized that this is sometimes the case - that's why there are blinking red lights. There's no reason to give bikes any special treatment.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Yes, there are some rules and laws that cover the behavior of cyclists. And you just mentioned a certain subset of them. But why does the way the Idaho Stop governs the cyclist's behavior lead to remarkably less accidents with cyclists and pedestrians?
Comparing ID with a short biking season to CA with a year long biking season invalidates their studies in my eyes. I have lived in both places. ID should have a lower rate. They are not comparable.
Also, Stop means Stop. Otherwise change the signs. Double meanings do not add to clarity.
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How about this: the rules of the road, are the rules of the road. They apply for everyone, not just the other guy or what they happen to be in/on: car, bicycle, motorcycle, horse-drawn carriage. Make sense?
Traffic is not homogenous, it travels in waves. I ride a motorcycle (amonsgt others), and by lane splitting through stopped traffic, then gunning it at the green it allows me to sit in an empty space of road inbetween the waves of ignorant drivers drinking their coffees, putting on makeup, and texting on their phones while driving. By riding in the gaps and not amongst the hordes it is safer for me, so I imagine the "Idaho Stop" allows cyclist something similar.
Simply put. Stop means Stop.,
If you want it to mean yield, put up a yield sign.
Confusing the meaning of traffic control signs simply is not a good idea. Traffic control needs to be simple, concise, and readily understandable.
Giving a stop sign double meaning for different traffic only confuses the issue and undoubtedly opens the door to a whole new branch of litigation. How is that a good idea?
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
You misunderstand Idaho Stop, as it never gives right of way to cyclists. The most they get is right of movement when there is no conflicting traffic, in other words when there is no right of way issue. If conflicting traffic is present then that traffic always has right of way over the cyclist at a stop sign or red light.
It certainly doesn't make cyclists "own the road", as you put it, since that's synonymous with having right of way.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
How about instead of a 3rd set of rules for the road, cyclists just pick one and fucking stick to it?
You're implying that there's only 2 sets of existing road rules. As a multiple license holder I assure you it's quite normal and reasonable to have different rules for different classes of vehicles. I have 4 different classes of license, all with different rules. Perhaps instead of getting all angry you should accept that the current rules aren't working (by the simple fact that you are clearly already all angry about cyclists in relation to the current rule set), therefore the only logical conclusion is for some changes to be implemented?
If you don't stop at a RED LIGHT until it changes you are a selfish as well as stupid bastard BEGGING to get killed, period.
It depends on which you are using at the reference point. If the raw numbers are 40 for city A and 100 for city B, then city A has 150% fewer accidents than city B when city A is the reference point, but 60% fewer when B is the reference point.
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In many developed countries now, road and petrol taxes are essentially punitive taxes: the state wants to make driving more expensive so that more people choose to use public transportation (or cycle) instead. As cyclists are not harming the environment or contributing to gridlock on city roads, then there is no reason they should be expected to pay the tax. Maintenance of roads is out of the general state budget anyway, not just paid from the taxes extracted from drivers.
As a cyclist who commutes year-round in Chicago, I just want to give a little shout out to the motorists, who are almost all incredibly polite. It's human nature for us to notice and remember the jerks (and I recall a few) but the incredibly vast majority of motorists are accommodating, friendly, and (when paying attention) cautious.
If I have one request of motorists, it's to get off the cell phones, something I am sure every road user -- pedestrian, cyclist and motorist agrees with.
Blinking red lights have not met the uniform traffic code for 50 years and exist only due to local budget issues. And bicycles are not treated equally on the road. For example most cars will pass a bike in a no passing zone. In some cases a no passing zone may last for several miles and you don't see a line of cars crawling along at 12 mph. which they would be doing if they actually obeyed the law. And then we come to the Interstate hwys. and turnpikes. Notice that they almost always have "no bicycles allowed" policies. I am not certain that one can travel the short distance from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami, no matter how far one detours, on a bicycle without breaking the law. All roads that connect are bicycle banned roads. Further, just why can we not have bicycle paths along all hwys.? Perhaps a safety rail should be in place and the bike paths should be a few feet removed from the car traffic. Further it is not just bicycles. There are vast areas that you can not legally reach by foot. And there is also the loss of ability to use a horse or horse and buggy to travel as our ancestors did daily. Consider the notion that as a nation we might be all better off if private cars and trucks were banned and people able to use bicycles everywhere. Regulated public taxis and the like could serve those who are impaired. Are you aware that it is next to impossible to go to prison in Florida for stealing a car unless you have a long arrest record? What do you think the court does with a bicycle thief? Not much!
The Idaho rolling stop law doesn't make taking your right of way legal. In fact, it makes it illegal. The proposed Oregon law increases the penalty for doing it. If you got to the intersection first in your car, you get the right of way. This is how I treat stop signs when I'm on my bike: if a car got there first, I stop. Unfortunately, they then usually motion me to go, which is really annoying, because I already stopped, so they aren't doing me a favor, but they think they are, so I have to be nice about it. One of the arguments in favor of the rolling stop law is that it avoids this annoying dance—drivers know what the law is, and are more likely to follow it, and so do bicyclists. The problem with the law in many states now is that it's bogus, so bicyclists and drivers collaborate to violate it.
It's really funny when someone says "I'm a professional, so my opinion matters more than the data." Well, maybe funny is the wrong word.
No, this means that you don't understand physics. If I come to a full stop and then go, I am going slower, so the time during which I am exposed to cross traffic is longer, which increases the likelihood that I will get hit. So at two-way stops, any bicyclist with a strong sense of self-preservation and long lines of sight goes through the stop sign without stopping. It doesn't mean that we blast through without slowing down, but we do try to keep as much speed as we safely can. Life is full of tradeoffs...
I think that all depends upon the traffic pattern at that time at that stop. One stop light where I used to live would convert to flashing yellow at 10pm and back to a stop light at 5am.
I don't agree. And with traffic laws it is all about predictability.
Everyone involved needs to have the same understanding of who has the right of way and why.
So?
There are only a couple of factors in play:
1. Do all the drivers / cyclists / pedestrians have the same understanding of who has the right of way and in what order?
2. Do all the drivers / cyclists / pedestrians have the same understanding of whether the intersection is "clear" for them?
And that is the problem. You are no longer predictable to the other drivers / cyclists / pedestrians. You might stop or you might not stop.
No it doesn't. The same as it does not make it safer for pedestrians to run across the intersection just because they're on a crosswalk.
Whether it is safer depends upon whether the other drivers / cyclists / pedestrians know where you are and have the same understanding of who has the right of way in what order.
The ONLY way that this change should have any positive change is if a driver would NOT have seen you when you were stopped BUT was far enough away that you could cross BEFORE he entered the intersection. In which case YOU need to work on YOUR visibility.
That's simply not true as a blanket statement. Where do you live? Certainly not in the US, where the current Federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices specifically addresses this:
As a quick check, both CA and FL laws reflect that usage, as is to be expected.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
You didn't mention this gem: "I'll attempt to time my passage such that I'll cross near my maximum speed, clearing the intersection expediently. Being through quicker reduces the chances I'll be involved in an accident there."
Assuming for the moment that we accept this reasoning, might this then be an argument for drivers, too, to accelerate when approaching stop signs, so that they might also minimize the time spent in an intersection?
Wir sind geboren, um frei zu sein - Rio Reiser
OK, so let's make a fair road tax for the cyclist. What could be fairer than basing it on how much damage a vehicle does to the road? So let's charge cyclist just $5 (or equivalent thereof per year), and have everyone pay proportionately to road damage.
Since road wear goes up approximately at the fourth power of axle weight, a bike has usually around no more than 50kg per axle. A small car is about 600kg per axle, so causes roughly 20,000 times as much road wear and so to be fair should pay 20,000 times more. Now how about that $100K a year road tax? Too much? Well to tax the cyclist fairly, the amount would have to be so tiny it's not worth collecting.
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To those cagers who blame cyclists for ignoring laws, I point out in Kansas, a motor vehicle is supposed to give a bike 3 feet of clearance. They don't, and the law is never enforced.
Last time I checked, "but moooooooom" was not a legal defense for breaking the law.
As in, "but moooooooom, the car drivers get to break laws, and no one goes after theeeeeeeem".
I'm sorry, but the answer to that isn't to give you a free pass to break laws, it is to crack down on the car drivers.
Now, to address your post: The reason bikes should have more latitude than cars or trucks is that bikes, considering their smaller mass and lower power, are much less likely to cause injury to another road user. Bikes can safely ignore many traffic laws meant for cars and trucks.
Right, because the injuries that you could cause are totally the reason for the laws. It isn't like we're worried about the injuries you might sustain. Which if it were just yourself involved, I'd say "go for it", throw your life away. But no, you involved me, the driver that hit you, who now has to live with the knowledge that he just killed another human being.
I don't want that guilt, so please, stop being a douche and obey the traffic laws.
Hence the point of the article, which discusses what happens when that "shit" stops being unexpected.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Mine was not a truly serious comment, it was to be taken as a response to a typical cyclist argument: "We want to be treated the same as cars when it benefits us, but we want to ignore the rules for cars when it benefits us, and we also want special treatment which benefits us." They (not all, but a significant number) come off as self-centered assholes.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
As a pedestrian, I fail to see why having two-wheeled idiots blasting through red lights is safer for me.
Strawman. Nobody is suggested legalizing the behavior you describe. Also, drivers are blasting through those same lights, at equal or greater speed, presenting far more danger - but you already accept them doing so.
Second: In NYC, 99.9% or so of pedestrian injuries are due to motor vehicle drivers. The remainder are due to collisions with cyclists. The city does not track fault in such collisions. Ride a bike in the city and you'll learn quickly that pedestrians will step out into the road relying on their ears, right into the path of a cyclist doing 15mph. And then get angry when you manage to avoid not hitting them.
As cycling has exploded in popularity in NYC - increasing by an order of magnitude - pedestrian injuries from collisions with cyclists have fallen. Roads in NYC which have bike lanes added become safer for all road users (people in cars, people on bicycles, people on foot.)
Especially since their view (if they were looking) and mine are likely to be obstructed by the cars & vans they're overtaking (usually on the wrong side).
An average-height adult male riding a bicycle is substantially higher than the roofline of most passenger cars. Our ability to see around us is unmatched by any other road user; most drivers have a viewpoint that's around my waist. And then they're inside a box, where they have roof pillars and other objects obstructing their view.
The right to pass traffic on the "wrong" side aka the righthand side in the US, is a specifically codified right in many states. In my state, we are allowed to pass on the right, and there is even a specific section that specifies that it is not an excuse for a collision with a cyclist that they were passing other traffic on the right.
Please help metamoderate.
As a motorcyclist, I hate when people wave me in front of their two-ton death machine when they have right-of-way when if they just went, I'd be able to go legally and safely behind them.
TN state law: If you are travelling slower than 10mph under the speed limit and you have three or more vehicles behind you, you are required to pull over or off the road to let those vehicles pass. Who's breaking the law now.
Some jurisdictions have exceptions to no-passing to allow for overtaking slow or stationary obstacles in any case.
TFA is a pile of crap, with no evidence to support its conclusions.
Rationale #1: "Yield" is just as safe as "Stop", and saves energy for bikers. Problem: It saves energy for cars, too, and if used with cars as bikers use it (slowing to 5MPH), should be just as safe for cars.
Rationale #2: Treating a stoplight as a 1-way stop sign is just as safe for a bike. Problem: Why not treat those stoplights as "Yield" signs, too, if those are safe? Why can't motorists adopt the same not-so-strict rules as bikes, for the same benefits? Also, the lower speed of bikes, combined with the possibility of blind corners and drivers that see the green light long before the biker, seems likely to make this very dangerous in *some* areas, particularly in the dark.
Rationale #3: Eliminate the laws cyclists don't follow, and they'll follow all the rest. Problem: "The rest" include the ones we're changing, because they don't follow them. ie. If they don't stop at stop-signs when there are cars waiting, NOW, why would they do so when they're effectively changed to Yield signs? If cyclists really have figured out the "Idaho Stop" on their own, why aren't the accident rates equally as low, and/or falling quickly?
Rationale #4: "the low-traffic routes that are safer for bikes are the kinds of roads with many stop signs." Problem: Low traffic routes are safer for cars, too. Sounds like we're changing the laws to encourage devaluing a number of roads for cars, in order to provide a biker's oasis.
Rationale #5: "he found that Sacramento had 30.5 percent more accidents per bike commuter and Bakersfield had 150 percent more". Problem: The improvement over Sacramento sounds like a very tiny improvement which could have been caused by any number of minor variables. Additionally, the HUGE GAPING DISPARITY between Sacramento and Bakersfield, both cities without these rule changes, clearly shows that the Idaho stop rules aren't causing these differences, and there's far too much uncontrolled variability to draw any conclusion about the Idaho method.
Where is the evidence... ANY evidence, that this is a positive change?
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The article's proposal is that they treat stop signs as yield signs, in which case they would - wait for it - yield to you.
Bingo. I wonder why so many detractors aren't willing to have even a pseudonym attached to their posts...
Take the AC's description of: "I stop. I check cross traffic. I see you, a cyclist, approaching your stop sign. I start to go, but since you had no intention of stopping, I hit you."
No intention of stopping? Perhaps, but in the given situation I'm slowing down. The AC, seeing the intersection is clear, proceeds through. Assuming no other traffic, once he's proceeding through, I speed up to cross just after him. If the intersection is busy, I'm stopping, slow start or not.
I follow the laws of physics - which says that I lose in any car-bicycle intersection, irregardless of who's right in the court of man. As such, I'm going to do my best to make sure cars aren't in a position to hit me.
Also, while I'm willing to treat most stop signs as yield signs, I'm NOT willing to treat red lights as 'pauses'. If I'm going to stop, I'm going to wait until it turns green again, or hell, get on the sidewalk and press the pedestrian button* because I'm too light to trip the automotive sensor in the road.
I don't read AC A human right
Except for one little thing. On your motorcycle you're moving at the same speed as traffic. A bicyclist Is slowing down the same same wave of traffic that managed to maneuver around it before the traffic light. Basically they're just slowing down even more traffic clogging up the same cars more than once.
I hear that argument a lot, but I've very rarely seen a line of cars behind a bicycle for any appreciable time. I've bike commuted most of my working life (~20+ years) and don't recall ever seeing such a situation in morning or evening rush hour traffic.
For the past 15 months or so I've had a 35 mile each way commute across LA county (from the Pasadena area to the South Bay- if it were permanent I'd move). I do it with a combination of freeways and surface streets (faster through downtown LA). Do you know what causes all the traffic? Cars. Do you know how many bicycles are on the 110 and the 101 and the 405 when they're locked up like parking lots? Zero. Same with the 110 when I get off the 110 and take surface streets through DTLA. On the surface streets, I share the lanes with a fair number of cyclists, and have never been delayed by a cyclist, and I get through DTLA on those streets shared with cyclists much faster than on the 110 clogged with motorists. If traffic is so heavy that cars are just creeping along, the cyclists can filter between the lanes just fine, and the drivers who need to pass them seem to pass them just fine.
Whoa, what country are you from? Blinking yellow is a yield, just like any 2 way stop intersection. When you don't have a stop sign in your direction, it is, and has always been, an implied yield. The yield signs just emphasize the point because a lot of people won't yield properly and think they own the road.
Here in the United States, in the state of Oregon, a blinking yellow is a cautionary signal, it is not a yield. Here is the driver's manual as a reference. Same rules in the state of Washington and Calfornia. I haven't checked the rest of country but to my knowledge the rules for basic traffic signals are consistent across the entire US.
Where are you from where this is not the case?
There's no need to take offense at a legitimate correction. We all do ignorant things. It is how you recover that demonstrates your character.
Your rhetorical question ("How many...anyway?") indirectly stated you believed only a few people bike in the snow.
I didn't object to your anecdote, but if you re-read your post, you can see forming your opinion on that basis was your failing. With your newly-learned knowledge about the subject, you should realize your sample was inadequate to form a generalization.
I never claimed to have done a search; however, having had personal experience with the activity, seeing it, and having seen numerous articles, threads, vids, and pics of it, I felt confident that if you had made a search prior to your posting, you would have seen results that would have compelled you to write something different. Therefore, you didn't search.
There's no need for me to refine my use of "lots" to an definite statistic.
(||) Nehmo (||)
So let me get this straight, you start off by whining about car users "bullying" you to get past you, and then in the second part of your post you state that pedestrians have right of way on your cycle paths but you feel they should pay attention to you and get out of your way?
This is precisely why cyclists have such a bad reputation - the superiority complex, the belief that both cars and pedestrians alike should cater to them.
Look it's great that you cycle - but consider this: those pedestrians walking four abreast that you want to get out your way? that's exactly how car users feel about you. If you want car users to not get annoyed that you're slowing down their journey then you might want to start by not having the same attitude towards pedestrians. I see all too many cyclists that fail to get this - they fail to consider that maybe a car is bullying them now, because 30 minutes before they or another cyclist were bullying the person driving that car when the driver was on foot as a pedestrian.
If cyclists want to start getting treated with more respect they need to learn the rules of the road and start treating others with respect equally. It doesn't matter what vehicle you're in, always treat those more vulnerable than you with respect - that means cars looking out for bikes, and bikes looking out for pedestrians, not everyone look out for bikes because they always seem to think they're fucking special.