Flutterby™! : Motorists v. Cyclists & stop signs 2013-03-01 17:00:54.786763+00

Motorists v. Cyclists & stop signs

2013-03-01 17:00:54.786763+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

Hey, "but bicyclists never stop for stop signs" whining drivers? Bite me: "Portland Oregon Bureau of Transportation looked at vehicle operator behavior at stop signs:

Actually, yes and no. While the study did indeed show that bicyclists come to a complete stop only 7 percent of the time, it also showed that motorists stop completely only 22 percent of the time.

(Obligatory link to my "I was hit because I stopped at a stop sign" tale)

I used to get really pissy about bicyclists who ignore stop signs, but eventually someone explained it like this: car drivers break the speed limit laws all the time, and nobody much cares. Cars make it so easy to go fast that it's actually kind of a lot of wasted effort to keep the machine's speed down to whatever the arbitrary limit happens to be on the current stretch of roadway. Well... on a bicycle, that's not a problem. Bicyclists are very, very good about obeying speed limits. But it's actually kind of a lot of wasted effort to come to a complete stop and then start back up again; you have to pump out all the energy with your legs, so you naturally don't want to waste it on stupid formalities.

What it says to me is that stop signs don't work, and we should figure out other ways to configure our intersections.

Removing stop signs (as Hans Monderman suggested and successfully trialed), installing traffic circles in higher volume intersections, building roads that acknowledge and influence how people actually use vehicles seems like a far better idea than implementing rules that nobody (or less than ¼ of everybody, no matter the mode) follows anyway.

#Comment Re: Stop sign behavior made: 2013-03-01 18:04:09.923455+00 by: Kesper Montauk

The theme: Sure bikes don't stop, but cars don't either! Isn't this the classic "Two wrongs" logical fallacy?

According to the article they stop more than three times as much, and it doesn't say which group more often blows through them at full speed. I have a guess.