Customers always go with the cheapest provider, so they can't afford infrastructure improvements without cutting themselves out of the market.
Actually, as long as you force them to disclose the transfer caps, it becomes a potential selling point. When I was forced to transfer to an ISP with a cap, it didn't take me more than a month to see my usage. I certainly know that transfer was an important point when I was shopping for my VPS.
As for 'infrastructure', I'd have to point out that much of the rest of the developed world manages to offer 10-1000 mbit to 'everyone'.
My 'free market' solution is to start removing artificial barriers towards companies running their own infrastructure. I'd downright subsidize 'neighborhood cooperatives'. It's a known fact that if you even threaten these guys with competition that suddenly it's profitable to offer 100X the service at the same price.
And how do you propose we do a year or two of testing with handguns in simulated combat situations?
Personally, I'm a 'choice' guy, but the way I'd do it is run the firearm through a military testing regimen. They'll take a number of the guns, including control weapons - a version without the smart technology if applicable, plus some standbys. I'd go with a 1911(old but good), M9(milspec), and Glock 22 (single most popular police weapon).
If it passes that, issue to a volunteer group of police, expanding said group gradually as long as no flaws are discovered. IE 10 the first year, then 20, 50, 100, 200, etc... The 10 people give you a start on longevity testing without placing too many officers at risk, once you're approaching 500 officer-years you're looking for low-order probabilities.
Per the CDC, in 2010: Deaths: 369 children(1-14) by firearm 208 were homicide(IE intentional by other) 81 were suicides(tragic, but would they have used something else if a firearm wasn't available?) 62 were unintentional Another source on injuries 1,535 injuries over a 5 year period, or 307/year.
A 'few hundred' is correct, but in a country of over 300M people, you'd be hard pressed to find many common activities that are less dangerous on the whole. While I always recommend keeping guns locked up, saying it's a pressing issue compared to things like the proper use of car seats, pool safety, etc... For example, on average 707 children(0-14) die each year from drowning. 3,533 experience nonfatal submersion injuries.
A Colt 1911 that anyone can go purchase at a gun store is IDENTICAL to the Colt 1911 that many people in the Military carry as a sidearm.
Most are carrying the M9 today, not the M1911, but the 1911 is still used more by special forces and such.
Other than that, I'd say that you don't go far enough. While my 1911 is explicitly milspec, I'd argue that even mine is superior to the early 1911s. Better metallurgy, more care taken in assembly, etc... However, go to the store and you can get a tricked out handgun that is superior in pretty much every respect to the M-9.
Want to spend the money, you can even get a rifle that, other than being 'only' semi-automatic*, it will be superior in every respect to the 'milspec' version - more reliable, more accurate, lighter**, etc...
No, there's nothing magical about 'milspec'. Today it's often more a code word for 'legacy crap'.
*And the military generally frowns on you firing at full auto even in combat. Full auto is saved for specific situations. **sometimes a mixed bag....
Personally I think private citizens should be allowed to carry whatever the police forces are allowed to carry.
...You do realize that police forces are technically authorized to carry machine guns if they darn well want to, right?
But I actually agree somewhat, and as my sig shows I'm a self-defense proponent. It works both ways - cops aren't allowed to carry anything that citizens aren't.
He was referring to a common 'failure to stop' drill called the Mozambique (Drill). Translation: 2 to the chest 1 to the head.
It works out very quickly because of muzzle climb. First round to around nipple level, a bit below the armpits. Second round to just below the collarbone area. Third round to the face, forehead specifically.
The idea is that even if somebody is wearing body armor it doesn't protect against head shots. So you shoot twice to the chest, the largest easiest disabling target. If that doesn't work, you put a round into the brain.
I'm a bit hesitant to believing that a fold up shield can withstand small arms fire, but I agree with deescalating to the maximum extent possible. But if you have to shoot, you should be effective at it. Tueller drills help reduce your reaction time if somebody is coming at you with a knife, as well as help inform you how close you can get and not be threatened by a knife. Mozambiques help in case you encounter somebody wearing armor. Or hopped up on crack/meth/bath salts for that matter.
There is an upper end on the difficulty for retrofitting a gun.
Roughly speaking, you can make a full auto sub-machine gun for about $50 worth of parts and labor if you're making lots of them.
Now, more labor makes some sense for higher quality, but there's a limit for guns for a criminal. Quality isn't actually that big of an issue for lots of them.
Still, what do you have to bypass in a smart gun to make it operate? One version I remember interfaced with the 'magazine safety', which is designed to not allow the gun to fire if the magazine was removed. 'fixing' that would involve ripping out the electronics and spot-welding the safety into the proper spot to disable it completely.
I think it's possible that the police don't want "smart" guns for the same reason citizens don't -- the perception that the circuitry or sensor may fail at a crucial moment and the gun will fail to fire when it should.
Given that the most popular firearm for police in the USA doesn't even include a manual safety? I agree. I just give the police as an example because statistics actually exist for them, and given their unique profession are at additional risk. If you're murdered in the line of duty as a police officer, there's a 5% chance it will be with your own weapon. Heck, the manga-trigger system is ancient and doesn't actually authenticate beyond you needing the ring(and any magna-trigger ring will work) and it worked as well as any more complicated system would have. Of course, if every gun had a magna-trigger then anybody with a functioning gun would have one and be able to fire any other firearm, theirs or not. So it doesn't scale.
I think the people who believe that smart guns should be required for citizens, justify it in their own minds by the stipulation that citizens shouldn't really be allowed to defend themselves, and "smart gun" laws is a baby step in that direction.
That's the perception of gunnies, yes. The other stated policies by said politicians only reinforces that. Unstated is also raising the price of firearms so only the rich can afford them. Classism at it's finest.
That's the Tueller Drill, and the distance is 21 feet. Closer than that the average officer cannot draw and fire his weapon before a determined knife wielder can get at least one attack in.
The citation does not specify your first argument - that there are good odds that your gun will be 'grabbed and used against you'. Second, it uses a disingenuous definition for a defensive use of a firearm - requiring not only that it be fired, but that it hit the suspect to be considered a defensive use. We already know that the vast majority of defensive firearm use doesn't involve shooting, thus the actual numbers are far higher. Third, it included the illegal possession of guns - having a felon in the house is far more indicative of violence than a firearm.
First, buy a real safe, not a 'residential security container'. Second, per reports including consumer reports, trigger locks are even worse for reliability. Several models actually make it EASIER for kids to fire the weapon with them on by giving them a bigger grip.
Yes. The argument often made for women not to carry firearms is that it'll be taken away from them and used against them.
If they're willing to fire it, it's very, very hard to take a gun away from somebody if it's in their hands.
Still, for a statistic on how many people are killed by their own weapons after being disarmed, I came up with a rate of 5% of police officers being murdered by their own weapon, as an average over the last decade(25 out of 535).
It's important to note that I figure that the guns were probably stolen out of the officer's holster, not out of his hands in most cases.
Review of FBI reports on slain officers in 2012 shows that 1 officer is listed as being killed with his own weapon, however I did not find such in the narrative, but the FBI site mentions that not all cases have a publically available narrative, for various reasons. I only found one where such a system would have been helpful, which involved using a slain officer's weapon to injure a tow truck driver and 2 other officers(1 fatally).
A corporal and a trooper with the West Virginia State Police, Clay County, were fatally wounded while preparing to transport a DUI suspect around 8 p.m. on August 28. The 42-year-old veteran corporal, who had nearly 17 years of law enforcement experience, was patrolling an interstate in a marked cruiser with the 26-year-old trooper, who had approximately 1.5 years' law enforcement experience. Following a report of a person driving a pickup truck in an erratic manner, the officers spotted the vehicle stopped in a âoepark and rideâ lot just off the interstate. (It was later revealed that the vehicle had been reported stolen earlier in the day, but it had not yet been entered into the National Crime Information Center at the time of the incident.) The driver, who was under the influence of narcotics at the time, was taken into custody. With hands cuffed in front of him, the suspect was placed in the back seat of the cruiser while the corporal and trooper searched his vehicle. When they got back in the cruiser (which was not equipped with a prisoner barrier), the suspect produced a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun he had hidden in his groin area. He shot the victim corporal twice in the rear of the head and the victim trooper in the neck/throat above his body armor. The suspect then unlocked his handcuffs, removed the victim corporal's.45-caliber handgun, and exited the cruiser. About this time, a tow truck the victims had requested arrived. The suspect shot the tow truck driver in the arm with the victim corporal's.45-caliber service weapon and fled the scene. The tow truck driver called for assistance and law enforcement officers from the Roane County and Clay County Sheriff's Departments as well as the Spencer Police Department responded. The tow truck driver, who was later treated for his wound and released, indicated the direction the suspect had fled and the officers began to search for him. As several deputies approached a ditch line, the suspect fired on them from a concealed position. A 43-year-old Roane County deputy, with nearly 4 years of law enforcement experience, was struck in both arms. The victim deputy was also struck in the front upper torso/chest and rear upper torso/back, but his body armor prevented the rounds from penetrating his torso. The officers returned gunfire at the 22-year-old suspect and justifiably killed him. The suspect had a prior criminal record, which included violent crime, drug violations, and police assault. The victim corporal was pronounced dead at the scene of the incident; the victim trooper and the victim deputy were taken to a medical center by helicopter. The victim deputy underwent sur
1. My maximum speed is slower than you think 2. I'm not blowing it. I'm timing it so I have priority. If you watch the video, I'm doing the 1st situation. In the example of a 'blown' stop sign, there's 2 cars with priority ahead of me. In that situation I'd slow down for them to go before I reach the sign.
If you're taking significantly longer to get to full speed from a stop, it likely means that you don't know how to properly shift gears.
Compared to a car. Otherwise it's more that I'm out of shape.
You do not own the road. You share the road and part of the courtesy is to obey the rules and stop for someone else when it's their turn to go, not hog the road as if you're the king of the road.
1. Nor do I think I do 2. Never said I wasn't going to yield within the rules, which kind of makes the rest of your post a strawman attack. 3. Did you miss the part about keeping out of drivers' ways and not pissing them off? Personally, I think that tends to indicate that I'm NOT a 'road hog'. Despite it being well within my rights to take a full and complete lane.
hat do you do when another bicyclist is also crossing? Do you cut him off too?
I cut nobody off, merely attempt to time my arrival at the intersection at a time when I have right of way and thus don't have to stop. Ideally this translates to 'right as the car is clearing my lane'.
If I have to stop, I stop. Might not like it, but it's one of the possibilities when you're dealing with a yield situation.
But tell me how you are going to make the laws of physics yield when you fail to see my half ton motor cycle going 30mph when you dont stop?
1. What the hell are you riding? 2. I think the 'not seeing' thing is psychological - you mostly see things that are as big as you are or larger, and when you're driving this tends to expand with the size of your vehicle. IE I'm going to see your monstrosity of a bike* very easily and thus the only way you're going to hit me is if YOU blow through the intersection.
The Idaho rolling stop law doesn't make taking your right of way legal. In fact, it makes it illegal.
Indeed, thus the mention of 'timing' my passage. If I was just going to blow through the intersection, I wouldn't need to time it. I need to time it in order to reach the intersection at a point where I have priority, thus being legal to enter without stopping. Not to mention safe.
I also hate people waving me through, because it'd just be faster if they followed the rules and went, I'll get going once I can cross behind them. I especially dislike it when they start accelerating before I'm clear.
On a side note, the whole idea of getting through an intersection faster is great when you have a green light, but trying to go against the light is stupid no matter how fast you do it.
It's been a few posts, but I want to point out that I only mentioned stop signs for a reason. I'm obeying red lights completely unless the darn thing is outright broken for bikes(IE it's sensor tripped, no pedestrian buttons), and there's not enough traffic to get it to change for me. Part of this is the
Treating a red light as a 'pause' is stupid, because not only am I going against standard rules, I'm still sacrificing momentum.
'Crazy' intersections(IE high volume) has me dismounting and walking through as a pedestrian, at the crossing.
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.
So.. can I do this in my motorcycle also then?? I'll save gas and time also.
keyword: motor. Nope. Odds are you have MORE acceleration than the cages, and you're very much not limited by human strength and endurance.
You'd only be covered under the first paragraph - turning a lot of our stop signs into yield signs for EVERYBODY.
to ride in their special bike lane single file so cars don't have to swerve around them, or just to ride single file anywhere there is traffic,
No real bike lanes where I am, but I do use the shoulder where possible. I don't ride with others, so 'single file' is kind of irrelevant. Hell, at red lights I'll get off the bike and cross as a pedestrian if it's at all 'hairy'.
And that is the problem. You are no longer predictable to the other drivers / cyclists / pedestrians. You might stop or you might not stop.
That's pretty much the definition of 'yield', yes. But remember, I'm going to attempt to time things so you either have plenty of time to go before I enter the intersection in the first place, or I clearly have the right away and am in the intersection before you reach the sign.
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.
That's because of the chance of falling. On a bike you're actually more stable the faster you're going.
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.
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Customers always go with the cheapest provider, so they can't afford infrastructure improvements without cutting themselves out of the market.
Actually, as long as you force them to disclose the transfer caps, it becomes a potential selling point. When I was forced to transfer to an ISP with a cap, it didn't take me more than a month to see my usage. I certainly know that transfer was an important point when I was shopping for my VPS.
As for 'infrastructure', I'd have to point out that much of the rest of the developed world manages to offer 10-1000 mbit to 'everyone'.
My 'free market' solution is to start removing artificial barriers towards companies running their own infrastructure. I'd downright subsidize 'neighborhood cooperatives'. It's a known fact that if you even threaten these guys with competition that suddenly it's profitable to offer 100X the service at the same price.
And how do you propose we do a year or two of testing with handguns in simulated combat situations?
Personally, I'm a 'choice' guy, but the way I'd do it is run the firearm through a military testing regimen. They'll take a number of the guns, including control weapons - a version without the smart technology if applicable, plus some standbys. I'd go with a 1911(old but good), M9(milspec), and Glock 22 (single most popular police weapon).
If it passes that, issue to a volunteer group of police, expanding said group gradually as long as no flaws are discovered. IE 10 the first year, then 20, 50, 100, 200, etc... The 10 people give you a start on longevity testing without placing too many officers at risk, once you're approaching 500 officer-years you're looking for low-order probabilities.
Per the CDC, in 2010:
Deaths:
369 children(1-14) by firearm
208 were homicide(IE intentional by other)
81 were suicides(tragic, but would they have used something else if a firearm wasn't available?)
62 were unintentional
Another source on injuries
1,535 injuries over a 5 year period, or 307/year.
A 'few hundred' is correct, but in a country of over 300M people, you'd be hard pressed to find many common activities that are less dangerous on the whole. While I always recommend keeping guns locked up, saying it's a pressing issue compared to things like the proper use of car seats, pool safety, etc... For example, on average 707 children(0-14) die each year from drowning. 3,533 experience nonfatal submersion injuries.
Welding supply stores? Hell, many service stations have machines today so you can fill your car tires with pure N2 - it's supposed to be better.
A Colt 1911 that anyone can go purchase at a gun store is IDENTICAL to the Colt 1911 that many people in the Military carry as a sidearm.
Most are carrying the M9 today, not the M1911, but the 1911 is still used more by special forces and such.
Other than that, I'd say that you don't go far enough. While my 1911 is explicitly milspec, I'd argue that even mine is superior to the early 1911s. Better metallurgy, more care taken in assembly, etc... However, go to the store and you can get a tricked out handgun that is superior in pretty much every respect to the M-9.
Want to spend the money, you can even get a rifle that, other than being 'only' semi-automatic*, it will be superior in every respect to the 'milspec' version - more reliable, more accurate, lighter**, etc...
No, there's nothing magical about 'milspec'. Today it's often more a code word for 'legacy crap'.
*And the military generally frowns on you firing at full auto even in combat. Full auto is saved for specific situations.
**sometimes a mixed bag....
Personally I think private citizens should be allowed to carry whatever the police forces are allowed to carry.
...You do realize that police forces are technically authorized to carry machine guns if they darn well want to, right?
But I actually agree somewhat, and as my sig shows I'm a self-defense proponent. It works both ways - cops aren't allowed to carry anything that citizens aren't.
He was referring to a common 'failure to stop' drill called the Mozambique (Drill). Translation: 2 to the chest 1 to the head.
It works out very quickly because of muzzle climb. First round to around nipple level, a bit below the armpits. Second round to just below the collarbone area. Third round to the face, forehead specifically.
The idea is that even if somebody is wearing body armor it doesn't protect against head shots. So you shoot twice to the chest, the largest easiest disabling target. If that doesn't work, you put a round into the brain.
I'm a bit hesitant to believing that a fold up shield can withstand small arms fire, but I agree with deescalating to the maximum extent possible. But if you have to shoot, you should be effective at it. Tueller drills help reduce your reaction time if somebody is coming at you with a knife, as well as help inform you how close you can get and not be threatened by a knife. Mozambiques help in case you encounter somebody wearing armor. Or hopped up on crack/meth/bath salts for that matter.
There is an upper end on the difficulty for retrofitting a gun.
Roughly speaking, you can make a full auto sub-machine gun for about $50 worth of parts and labor if you're making lots of them.
Now, more labor makes some sense for higher quality, but there's a limit for guns for a criminal. Quality isn't actually that big of an issue for lots of them.
Still, what do you have to bypass in a smart gun to make it operate? One version I remember interfaced with the 'magazine safety', which is designed to not allow the gun to fire if the magazine was removed. 'fixing' that would involve ripping out the electronics and spot-welding the safety into the proper spot to disable it completely.
I think it's possible that the police don't want "smart" guns for the same reason citizens don't -- the perception that the circuitry or sensor may fail at a crucial moment and the gun will fail to fire when it should.
Given that the most popular firearm for police in the USA doesn't even include a manual safety? I agree. I just give the police as an example because statistics actually exist for them, and given their unique profession are at additional risk. If you're murdered in the line of duty as a police officer, there's a 5% chance it will be with your own weapon. Heck, the manga-trigger system is ancient and doesn't actually authenticate beyond you needing the ring(and any magna-trigger ring will work) and it worked as well as any more complicated system would have. Of course, if every gun had a magna-trigger then anybody with a functioning gun would have one and be able to fire any other firearm, theirs or not. So it doesn't scale.
I think the people who believe that smart guns should be required for citizens, justify it in their own minds by the stipulation that citizens shouldn't really be allowed to defend themselves, and "smart gun" laws is a baby step in that direction.
That's the perception of gunnies, yes. The other stated policies by said politicians only reinforces that. Unstated is also raising the price of firearms so only the rich can afford them. Classism at it's finest.
That's the Tueller Drill, and the distance is 21 feet. Closer than that the average officer cannot draw and fire his weapon before a determined knife wielder can get at least one attack in.
The citation does not specify your first argument - that there are good odds that your gun will be 'grabbed and used against you'.
Second, it uses a disingenuous definition for a defensive use of a firearm - requiring not only that it be fired, but that it hit the suspect to be considered a defensive use. We already know that the vast majority of defensive firearm use doesn't involve shooting, thus the actual numbers are far higher.
Third, it included the illegal possession of guns - having a felon in the house is far more indicative of violence than a firearm.
you can buy a regular gun and a good safe.
No kidding. The gun runs ~$600 more than a regular .22 of the same features, and doesn't come with the $400 'watch'.
For $1k you can buy a full up gun safe rated in the hours against fire and double digit minutes against forced entry.
First, buy a real safe, not a 'residential security container'.
Second, per reports including consumer reports, trigger locks are even worse for reliability. Several models actually make it EASIER for kids to fire the weapon with them on by giving them a bigger grip.
Why Helium and not the significantly cheaper nitrogen?
Yes. The argument often made for women not to carry firearms is that it'll be taken away from them and used against them.
If they're willing to fire it, it's very, very hard to take a gun away from somebody if it's in their hands.
Still, for a statistic on how many people are killed by their own weapons after being disarmed, I came up with a rate of 5% of police officers being murdered by their own weapon, as an average over the last decade(25 out of 535).
It's important to note that I figure that the guns were probably stolen out of the officer's holster, not out of his hands in most cases.
Review of FBI reports on slain officers in 2012 shows that 1 officer is listed as being killed with his own weapon, however I did not find such in the narrative, but the FBI site mentions that not all cases have a publically available narrative, for various reasons. I only found one where such a system would have been helpful, which involved using a slain officer's weapon to injure a tow truck driver and 2 other officers(1 fatally).
1. My maximum speed is slower than you think
2. I'm not blowing it. I'm timing it so I have priority. If you watch the video, I'm doing the 1st situation. In the example of a 'blown' stop sign, there's 2 cars with priority ahead of me. In that situation I'd slow down for them to go before I reach the sign.
If you're taking significantly longer to get to full speed from a stop, it likely means that you don't know how to properly shift gears.
Compared to a car. Otherwise it's more that I'm out of shape.
You do not own the road. You share the road and part of the courtesy is to obey the rules and stop for someone else when it's their turn to go, not hog the road as if you're the king of the road.
1. Nor do I think I do
2. Never said I wasn't going to yield within the rules, which kind of makes the rest of your post a strawman attack.
3. Did you miss the part about keeping out of drivers' ways and not pissing them off? Personally, I think that tends to indicate that I'm NOT a 'road hog'. Despite it being well within my rights to take a full and complete lane.
hat do you do when another bicyclist is also crossing? Do you cut him off too?
I cut nobody off, merely attempt to time my arrival at the intersection at a time when I have right of way and thus don't have to stop. Ideally this translates to 'right as the car is clearing my lane'.
If I have to stop, I stop. Might not like it, but it's one of the possibilities when you're dealing with a yield situation.
But tell me how you are going to make the laws of physics yield when you fail to see my half ton motor cycle going 30mph when you dont stop?
1. What the hell are you riding?
2. I think the 'not seeing' thing is psychological - you mostly see things that are as big as you are or larger, and when you're driving this tends to expand with the size of your vehicle. IE I'm going to see your monstrosity of a bike* very easily and thus the only way you're going to hit me is if YOU blow through the intersection.
*I ride myself, just not something that big.
The Idaho rolling stop law doesn't make taking your right of way legal. In fact, it makes it illegal.
Indeed, thus the mention of 'timing' my passage. If I was just going to blow through the intersection, I wouldn't need to time it. I need to time it in order to reach the intersection at a point where I have priority, thus being legal to enter without stopping. Not to mention safe.
I also hate people waving me through, because it'd just be faster if they followed the rules and went, I'll get going once I can cross behind them. I especially dislike it when they start accelerating before I'm clear.
On a side note, the whole idea of getting through an intersection faster is great when you have a green light, but trying to go against the light is stupid no matter how fast you do it.
It's been a few posts, but I want to point out that I only mentioned stop signs for a reason. I'm obeying red lights completely unless the darn thing is outright broken for bikes(IE it's sensor tripped, no pedestrian buttons), and there's not enough traffic to get it to change for me. Part of this is the
Treating a red light as a 'pause' is stupid, because not only am I going against standard rules, I'm still sacrificing momentum.
'Crazy' intersections(IE high volume) has me dismounting and walking through as a pedestrian, at the crossing.
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.
So .. can I do this in my motorcycle also then?? I'll save gas and time also.
keyword: motor. Nope. Odds are you have MORE acceleration than the cages, and you're very much not limited by human strength and endurance.
You'd only be covered under the first paragraph - turning a lot of our stop signs into yield signs for EVERYBODY.
to ride in their special bike lane single file so cars don't have to swerve around them, or just to ride single file anywhere there is traffic,
No real bike lanes where I am, but I do use the shoulder where possible. I don't ride with others, so 'single file' is kind of irrelevant. Hell, at red lights I'll get off the bike and cross as a pedestrian if it's at all 'hairy'.
And that is the problem. You are no longer predictable to the other drivers / cyclists / pedestrians. You might stop or you might not stop.
That's pretty much the definition of 'yield', yes. But remember, I'm going to attempt to time things so you either have plenty of time to go before I enter the intersection in the first place, or I clearly have the right away and am in the intersection before you reach the sign.
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.
That's because of the chance of falling. On a bike you're actually more stable the faster you're going.
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.
That we're losing the 'war' as badly as we are against drugs, obesity, etc... Doesn't detract from the point.