8 ms·

As somebody who has biked thousands of miles in SF, this is a fun thing to argue about but it doesn't make any difference on the streets. Almost every biker al

by birken 11y ago

As somebody who has biked thousands of miles in SF, this is a fun thing to argue about but it doesn't make any difference on the streets. Almost every biker already does this, and as long as the police (correctly) don't enforce the actual law, whether or not it is legal really makes little difference. If you are a driver you shouldn't notice the difference anyways. If you get to the stop sign first, then the biker has to stop. If they don't, they are breaking the law. If they get there first, they get to go, but by not stopping they'll get out of your way sooner. Also major Kudos to The Wigg Party [1] who came up with the idea for the creative and wildly effective "Stop In" protest. When you compare that protest to the moronic monthly takeover of the streets by Critical Mass it is like night and day. 1: http://wiggparty.org/ http://wiggparty.org/

robszumski 11y ago
Part of the article addresses that other cities are looking to San Francisco to set a precedent before adopting similar laws. It might be defacto legal here, but other cities need a law on the books to get the same privilege.
cpitman 11y ago
Why does this make any more sense for bikes than for cars? This seems to be an argument for why the current rules for stop signs are wrong because there is an "obvious" set of cases where someone shouldn't have to stop. Isn't the problem when the two parties disagree about who got to the intersection first?
- birken 11y ago
  There are many differences. This is in the "beating a dead horse" category of argument because the difference between driving up to an intersection and biking up to one is so intuitively different if you've done both of them. But here are some reasons off the top of my head of why it is safer to yield through a stop sign on a bike vs a car: 1) On a bike you are much more towards the middle of the intersection so there is more space between you and people potentially entering the intersection from the sides, so you have more reaction time to deal with them 2) Your cross section is really tiny and entirely in front of you so there is no risk of hitting something you don't see 3) You have a much better field of view because you aren't obstructed by your car interior 4) You can use your sense of hearing to listen for cars/ pedestrians / other dangers 5) You are going much more slowly
  - bluejekyll 11y ago
    Don't forget the cost of momentum. On a bike stopping and starting is a huge tax on you where as in a car it's just moving your foot from break to gas.
    - jedberg 11y ago
      Except that there is also the cost to the environment. Conserving momentum in a car means using less gas.
      - roel_v 11y ago
        That's not an 'except' kind of argument, more 'as a second order effect, there is also...'.
      - mmariani 11y ago
        Tell that to the cities that don't sync their traffic lights. It doesn't matter whether I'm driving or cycling, that always pisses me off.
  - eridius 11y ago
    Bikes are also more nimble, so you're a lot less likely to run into someone else by accident, and if you do, you're likely to only hurt yourself (running into a pedestrian is different, but you're not going to encounter a pedestrian in the middle of an interesection; cross walk, sure, but the danger there is the same whether you stop or yield). Meanwhile in a car, if you hit someone, you're driving a big multi-ton metal vehicle and you're going to injure or kill anything you hit.
  - steadicat 11y ago
    And don't forget that a bike is least stable when starting and stopping, especially for unskilled riders. Having to come to a complete stop at every intersection can be more dangerous, not less, especially if there are cars approaching behind the cyclist: drivers are likely to roll through the stop sign themselves and pass the cyclist right as he is starting again.
- brlewis 11y ago
  Police where I am don't enforce full stop for cars either. The consequences of two "yield" parties disagreeing about who got to the intersection first are a lot less severe when you're dealing with vehicles that weigh less than their operators. We already have laws that vary according to size and weight: trucks are not allowed on certain roads and highway lanes.
  - anon4 11y ago
    4-way stop intersections are extremely puzzling to me. We don't have them in most of Europe (I suspect all of Europe, but I can't speak for everywhere). STOP/Yield signs always come paired with right-of-way signs, so much so that having a stop/yield or right-of-way sign on just one street of an intersection automatically means the crossing street effectively has the other sign on it, even if it is missing. I think this is because they used to be stolen from time to time and sold for scrap metal. In the case of an intersection with no signs, the person on the right has the right of way, and the person going straight has the right of way respective to the one making a left turn. For T-sections, the person on the main road always has the right of way. For more complicated 5- or 6-way intersections, they put signs, traffic lights or roundabouts.
- analog31 11y ago
  I suspect that stop signs serve an additional purpose, of calming traffic in neighborhoods. Long stretches where car drivers don't expect to slow down, will increase overall speeds. This is already evident on long neighborhood streets that don't have stop signs, and where they are now installing speed bumps at the request of residents. Perhaps not a planned benefit, but the inconvenience of stop signs also funnels car traffic onto the larger trunk roads, leaving the side streets for cyclists -- a cheap and cheerful way of separating car and bike traffic. On the other hand, I suspect that stop signs are also just a cheap traffic control device that works with minimal case-by-case design, especially in neighborhoods with narrow streets. Alternatives, such as roundabouts, tend to involve complete re-design of an area with at least a 50 yard radius, for instance eliminating visual obstacles and parked cars.
  - steadicat 11y ago
    Moving to the US from Europe one of the most striking differences I noticed was the near complete absence of yield signs. Where I come from (Italy) yield signs are way more common than stop signs at intersections (unless visibility is very poor). Also, traffic lights seem comparatively overused the US, even at low-traffic intersections. I always wondered why. Yield signs would be a cheap and convenient alternative to stop signs and traffic lights at low-traffic intersections with good visibility.
    - Symbiote 11y ago
      Take the UK rules for stop signs as an example: "In the UK, stop signs may be placed only at sites with severely restricted visibility, and each must be individually approved by the Secretary of State for Transport." They are rare, I can only think of one in the county my parents live in. (No doubt there are a few more, but on all the routes we often used when I was a child, there was only one.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#United_Kingdom
      - TorKlingberg 11y ago
        That sounds excessive. Has there been a political movement against stop signs in the UK?
latchkey 11y ago
I'm an American (San Francisco) visiting Saigon right now for work. The traffic is insane and the air quality here is horrid (even indoors!). I've been avid cyclist my entire life and motorcyclist for the past 10 years. I use either one in SF almost every day of the week. Everyone here rides scooters and motorcycles. There is almost zero 'law' when it comes to moving around (walking, biking, car or moto). People drive on the sidewalks, wrong way, don't stop, 2 people a baby and a lawn mower, etc. The amazing thing is that while I'm sure there are a lot of accidents (although I have yet to see one personally), in general things _just seem to work_. I've rented a moto here and experienced the flow first hand both by myself and with locals. I actually feel much safer on two wheels than while playing frogger trying to cross a street on foot. I also felt safer here on a moto than I do in SF, simply because the culture here is to accept the insanity and not fight it. In SF the 'us' vs. 'them' argument has gotten so out of control that I feel like many people in cars literally have put a target on my back. I get none of that attitude here in Saigon and it is refreshing. So if SF wants to let cyclists yield at stop signs because it is actually safer for the cyclist, then let them do it. If you hit the cyclist with your car because they did something stupid, you aren't going to get hurt and you won't be liable (just like before this rule). Many other places in the world have already figured this out and are working just fine.
- bweitzman 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
  - latchkey 11y ago
    Interesting numbers. Vietnam is pretty high up there for deaths / 100k people. I'd attribute that more to the lack of proper safety equipment. Almost everyone wears helmets (required), but they are a joke in terms of quality and nobody wears any sort of armor cause it is too hot. Many people also ride two up which is the max allowed (3 with a baby). The speeds here are also just not that fast because of the traffic and quality of the scooters. Top speed is maybe 30mph. In San Francisco, I strictly follow ATGATT and have had zero accidents, but a million close calls.
MichaelApproved 11y ago
I enforced rules would still play a part in accident litigation. If a bike blew through a stop sign, he might me more liable compared to if he was allowed to simply yield. No cop will ticket it but a lawyer would include that in court.
- tabio 11y ago
  blowing a yield sign, into a collision, is as illegal as blowing a stop sign.
hugh4 11y ago
I got fined $150 for breezing through a stop sign on a bike once and since then I've been stopping at every single goddamn one. So if they're changing the law it makes me happy.
abalone 11y ago
I live on the wiggle. The problem in most cases is not the interaction with cars. It's the interaction with pedestrians. When bikes approach intersections at speed, it's pretty easy to spot the vehicles at or approaching it. They have bulk and presence. But to clear pedestrians you've also got to check 3 or 4 corners. Sometimes those corners are even occluded by parked cars as you approach. So what happens time and time again is bikes don't notice pedestrians entering the crosswalk until it's too late to stop at the speed they're going. So they end up veering around the often very surprised people who did not expect a bike to blow right past them from out of nowhere. This is a rather disconcerting experience, and it leads to a HUGE number of complaints. Note, I am a big supporter of proper bike infrastructure, think it's worth removing parking spots for it, think it's worth installing traffic lights for bikes, separated elevated bike lines, and all that. But I'll say this: San Francisco is not Idaho. We have so much more density. The busiest bike/pedestrian intersection in Idaho can't hold a candle to the wiggle. Rolling through stop signs at even moderate speeds is not super compatible with heavy pedestrian traffic.
- jules 11y ago
  Bike density is way higher in Amsterdam, yet it works well. Then again, in Amsterdam all bikes have brakes and people go at a slower speed.
  - abalone 11y ago
    That is because Amsterdam has vastly better bike infrastructure. "Cyclists rule in Amsterdam and great pains have been taken to accommodate them: the city is equipped with an elaborate network of cycle-paths and lanes, so safe and comfortable that even toddlers and elderly people use bikes as the easiest mode of transport." http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicycle-capital-world-transport-cycling-kindermoord http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicy...
    - phicoh 11y ago
      In this context, that statement is wrong. Cycle paths mostly keep cyclists safe from cars. They don't do much for pedestrians. Worse, it seems that in recently years the city of Amsterdam is set on creating cycle paths in just about all streets but can't be bothered to engineer them properly. So the whole thing becomes a bigger and bigger mess.
bigfudge 11y ago
Lets' think about the record of your police in selective enforcement of traffic laws for minorities. If the norm is non-enforcement, and if I was black, I'd probably prefer it if the law was 'tidied up' in this regard.
makecheck 11y ago
As somebody who encounters a dozen cyclists every day, it DOES matter and the "do whatever we want" behavior of many, many, many, many, cyclists is a big problem. Some of the stop signs on my path are 5-way, which are already screwed up enough without having to guess which random direction a cyclist will coast from (usually endangering pedestrians and cars alike). When I am trying to turn right at a stop sign, a disturbing number of times a cyclist will approach from somewhere and decide to coast around the corner while I am turning too. Then I have to worry about seeing him when he should have STOPPED. I also see cyclists turn from pretty much anywhere they want. They don't use hand signals, they don't switch to the driving lane, they just randomly hang a left in front of you while you're approaching a stop. Cyclists expect to share the road, they need to obey the rules. It really can't be any simpler than that.
zaccus 11y ago
It make a huge difference whether or not it's legal. Drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians need to be able to make reasonable assumptions about other vehicles on the road. Whether cyclists should be required to stop at stop signs or not is debatable, but I'm not ok with the police deciding which laws they want to enforce. Enforcing the actual law is the whole point of their job. This whole debate has become toxic.

by birken 11y ago

robszumski 11y ago

Part of the article addresses that other cities are looking to San Francisco to set a precedent before adopting similar laws. It might be defacto legal here, but other cities need a law on the books to get the same privilege.

cpitman 11y ago

Why does this make any more sense for bikes than for cars? This seems to be an argument for why the current rules for stop signs are wrong because there is an "obvious" set of cases where someone shouldn't have to stop. Isn't the problem when the two parties disagree about who got to the intersection first?

birken 11y ago
There are many differences. This is in the "beating a dead horse" category of argument because the difference between driving up to an intersection and biking up to one is so intuitively different if you've done both of them. But here are some reasons off the top of my head of why it is safer to yield through a stop sign on a bike vs a car: 1) On a bike you are much more towards the middle of the intersection so there is more space between you and people potentially entering the intersection from the sides, so you have more reaction time to deal with them 2) Your cross section is really tiny and entirely in front of you so there is no risk of hitting something you don't see 3) You have a much better field of view because you aren't obstructed by your car interior 4) You can use your sense of hearing to listen for cars/ pedestrians / other dangers 5) You are going much more slowly
- bluejekyll 11y ago
  Don't forget the cost of momentum. On a bike stopping and starting is a huge tax on you where as in a car it's just moving your foot from break to gas.
  - jedberg 11y ago
    Except that there is also the cost to the environment. Conserving momentum in a car means using less gas.
    - roel_v 11y ago
      That's not an 'except' kind of argument, more 'as a second order effect, there is also...'.
    - mmariani 11y ago
      Tell that to the cities that don't sync their traffic lights. It doesn't matter whether I'm driving or cycling, that always pisses me off.
- eridius 11y ago
  Bikes are also more nimble, so you're a lot less likely to run into someone else by accident, and if you do, you're likely to only hurt yourself (running into a pedestrian is different, but you're not going to encounter a pedestrian in the middle of an interesection; cross walk, sure, but the danger there is the same whether you stop or yield). Meanwhile in a car, if you hit someone, you're driving a big multi-ton metal vehicle and you're going to injure or kill anything you hit.
- steadicat 11y ago
  And don't forget that a bike is least stable when starting and stopping, especially for unskilled riders. Having to come to a complete stop at every intersection can be more dangerous, not less, especially if there are cars approaching behind the cyclist: drivers are likely to roll through the stop sign themselves and pass the cyclist right as he is starting again.
brlewis 11y ago
Police where I am don't enforce full stop for cars either. The consequences of two "yield" parties disagreeing about who got to the intersection first are a lot less severe when you're dealing with vehicles that weigh less than their operators. We already have laws that vary according to size and weight: trucks are not allowed on certain roads and highway lanes.
- anon4 11y ago
  4-way stop intersections are extremely puzzling to me. We don't have them in most of Europe (I suspect all of Europe, but I can't speak for everywhere). STOP/Yield signs always come paired with right-of-way signs, so much so that having a stop/yield or right-of-way sign on just one street of an intersection automatically means the crossing street effectively has the other sign on it, even if it is missing. I think this is because they used to be stolen from time to time and sold for scrap metal. In the case of an intersection with no signs, the person on the right has the right of way, and the person going straight has the right of way respective to the one making a left turn. For T-sections, the person on the main road always has the right of way. For more complicated 5- or 6-way intersections, they put signs, traffic lights or roundabouts.
analog31 11y ago
I suspect that stop signs serve an additional purpose, of calming traffic in neighborhoods. Long stretches where car drivers don't expect to slow down, will increase overall speeds. This is already evident on long neighborhood streets that don't have stop signs, and where they are now installing speed bumps at the request of residents. Perhaps not a planned benefit, but the inconvenience of stop signs also funnels car traffic onto the larger trunk roads, leaving the side streets for cyclists -- a cheap and cheerful way of separating car and bike traffic. On the other hand, I suspect that stop signs are also just a cheap traffic control device that works with minimal case-by-case design, especially in neighborhoods with narrow streets. Alternatives, such as roundabouts, tend to involve complete re-design of an area with at least a 50 yard radius, for instance eliminating visual obstacles and parked cars.
- steadicat 11y ago
  Moving to the US from Europe one of the most striking differences I noticed was the near complete absence of yield signs. Where I come from (Italy) yield signs are way more common than stop signs at intersections (unless visibility is very poor). Also, traffic lights seem comparatively overused the US, even at low-traffic intersections. I always wondered why. Yield signs would be a cheap and convenient alternative to stop signs and traffic lights at low-traffic intersections with good visibility.
  - Symbiote 11y ago
    Take the UK rules for stop signs as an example: "In the UK, stop signs may be placed only at sites with severely restricted visibility, and each must be individually approved by the Secretary of State for Transport." They are rare, I can only think of one in the county my parents live in. (No doubt there are a few more, but on all the routes we often used when I was a child, there was only one.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#United_Kingdom
    - TorKlingberg 11y ago
      That sounds excessive. Has there been a political movement against stop signs in the UK?

latchkey 11y ago

I'm an American (San Francisco) visiting Saigon right now for work. The traffic is insane and the air quality here is horrid (even indoors!). I've been avid cyclist my entire life and motorcyclist for the past 10 years. I use either one in SF almost every day of the week. Everyone here rides scooters and motorcycles. There is almost zero 'law' when it comes to moving around (walking, biking, car or moto). People drive on the sidewalks, wrong way, don't stop, 2 people a baby and a lawn mower, etc. The amazing thing is that while I'm sure there are a lot of accidents (although I have yet to see one personally), in general things _just seem to work_. I've rented a moto here and experienced the flow first hand both by myself and with locals. I actually feel much safer on two wheels than while playing frogger trying to cross a street on foot. I also felt safer here on a moto than I do in SF, simply because the culture here is to accept the insanity and not fight it. In SF the 'us' vs. 'them' argument has gotten so out of control that I feel like many people in cars literally have put a target on my back. I get none of that attitude here in Saigon and it is refreshing. So if SF wants to let cyclists yield at stop signs because it is actually safer for the cyclist, then let them do it. If you hit the cyclist with your car because they did something stupid, you aren't going to get hurt and you won't be liable (just like before this rule). Many other places in the world have already figured this out and are working just fine.

bweitzman 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
- latchkey 11y ago
  Interesting numbers. Vietnam is pretty high up there for deaths / 100k people. I'd attribute that more to the lack of proper safety equipment. Almost everyone wears helmets (required), but they are a joke in terms of quality and nobody wears any sort of armor cause it is too hot. Many people also ride two up which is the max allowed (3 with a baby). The speeds here are also just not that fast because of the traffic and quality of the scooters. Top speed is maybe 30mph. In San Francisco, I strictly follow ATGATT and have had zero accidents, but a million close calls.

MichaelApproved 11y ago

I enforced rules would still play a part in accident litigation. If a bike blew through a stop sign, he might me more liable compared to if he was allowed to simply yield. No cop will ticket it but a lawyer would include that in court.

tabio 11y ago
blowing a yield sign, into a collision, is as illegal as blowing a stop sign.

hugh4 11y ago

I got fined $150 for breezing through a stop sign on a bike once and since then I've been stopping at every single goddamn one. So if they're changing the law it makes me happy.

abalone 11y ago

I live on the wiggle. The problem in most cases is not the interaction with cars. It's the interaction with pedestrians. When bikes approach intersections at speed, it's pretty easy to spot the vehicles at or approaching it. They have bulk and presence. But to clear pedestrians you've also got to check 3 or 4 corners. Sometimes those corners are even occluded by parked cars as you approach. So what happens time and time again is bikes don't notice pedestrians entering the crosswalk until it's too late to stop at the speed they're going. So they end up veering around the often very surprised people who did not expect a bike to blow right past them from out of nowhere. This is a rather disconcerting experience, and it leads to a HUGE number of complaints. Note, I am a big supporter of proper bike infrastructure, think it's worth removing parking spots for it, think it's worth installing traffic lights for bikes, separated elevated bike lines, and all that. But I'll say this: San Francisco is not Idaho. We have so much more density. The busiest bike/pedestrian intersection in Idaho can't hold a candle to the wiggle. Rolling through stop signs at even moderate speeds is not super compatible with heavy pedestrian traffic.

jules 11y ago
Bike density is way higher in Amsterdam, yet it works well. Then again, in Amsterdam all bikes have brakes and people go at a slower speed.
- abalone 11y ago
  That is because Amsterdam has vastly better bike infrastructure. "Cyclists rule in Amsterdam and great pains have been taken to accommodate them: the city is equipped with an elaborate network of cycle-paths and lanes, so safe and comfortable that even toddlers and elderly people use bikes as the easiest mode of transport." http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicycle-capital-world-transport-cycling-kindermoord http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicy...
  - phicoh 11y ago
    In this context, that statement is wrong. Cycle paths mostly keep cyclists safe from cars. They don't do much for pedestrians. Worse, it seems that in recently years the city of Amsterdam is set on creating cycle paths in just about all streets but can't be bothered to engineer them properly. So the whole thing becomes a bigger and bigger mess.

bigfudge 11y ago

Lets' think about the record of your police in selective enforcement of traffic laws for minorities. If the norm is non-enforcement, and if I was black, I'd probably prefer it if the law was 'tidied up' in this regard.

makecheck 11y ago

As somebody who encounters a dozen cyclists every day, it DOES matter and the "do whatever we want" behavior of many, many, many, many, cyclists is a big problem. Some of the stop signs on my path are 5-way, which are already screwed up enough without having to guess which random direction a cyclist will coast from (usually endangering pedestrians and cars alike). When I am trying to turn right at a stop sign, a disturbing number of times a cyclist will approach from somewhere and decide to coast around the corner while I am turning too. Then I have to worry about seeing him when he should have STOPPED. I also see cyclists turn from pretty much anywhere they want. They don't use hand signals, they don't switch to the driving lane, they just randomly hang a left in front of you while you're approaching a stop. Cyclists expect to share the road, they need to obey the rules. It really can't be any simpler than that.

zaccus 11y ago

It make a huge difference whether or not it's legal. Drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians need to be able to make reasonable assumptions about other vehicles on the road. Whether cyclists should be required to stop at stop signs or not is debatable, but I'm not ok with the police deciding which laws they want to enforce. Enforcing the actual law is the whole point of their job. This whole debate has become toxic.