8 ms·

«make it a 4-way stop» You may be unaware, but 4-way stop signs are very uncommon outside of the US. In fact, in the UK they have always been formally prohibit

• idoh 9y ago
  Yeah where I live (the outer sunset neighborhood of San Francisco) it feels like half the stops are 2-way and the other half are 4-way. As a cyclist this is dangerous for me, because if I go through an intersection where I am not stopped but cars are subject to the stop, they will stop, not see me, then start going. So consistency is key!
  • aidenn0 9y ago
    It happens the other way around too; I had a bicyclist roll through a 2-way where I had no stop and almost cause a collision. They yelled at me, probably thinking it was a 4-way. It might be my imagination, but I seem to recall nearly all, if not all, 4-ways marked as such with a small rectangular placard below the stop sign in Virginia. I've seen them sometimes in California, but not even at the majority (not really any more common than the opposite sign "Cross traffic does not stop").
    • jessriedel 9y ago
      > It might be my imagination, but I seem to recall nearly all, if not all, 4-ways marked as such with a small rectangular placard below the stop sign in Virginia. This is the key problem. Whether an intersection is a 4-way or 2-way stop sign changes the right-of-way of any person with a stop sign. (If it's 2-way, I must yield, but if it's 4-way and I've reached the intersection first, I have the right-of-way.) It is crazy that in the US, a person at a stop sign can't distinguish these two situations for certainly without looking to see if the other direction has a stop sign. (Similar complaints can be made about flashing-red and flashing-yellow intersections.)
• daxfohl 9y ago
  That's crazy. I find myself frequently having to pause, look around, make sure, etc (and the pausing and looking around in itself is dangerous) so often because of the discrepancy. But as someone born and raised here I've never considered an alternative, and am shocked that the alternative is so simple!
• afterburner 9y ago
  The "4-way" or "All-way" addition helps a little ( https://i.imgur.com/dzRksUw.jpg https://i.imgur.com/dzRksUw.jpg ), but I've made the mistake at least once or twice myself.
• Dylan16807 9y ago
  > rolling stops What's special about a 4-way stop here? And a rolling stop is good enough to prevent a high-speed collision anyway. > assuming an intersection with a stop sign is almost always a 4-way stop Around here there is a good mix and I don't think that happens. > I prefer the consistency of my home country where every stop is a 2-way stop Well I personally hate going through 2-way-stop intersections that are over 25mph.
  • tbihl 9y ago
    A rolling stop is only good enough to prevent a 'high-speed collision' as judged by people wearing steel armor boxes.
    • Dylan16807 9y ago
      If you don't drop to walking speed, it's not a rolling stop, it's flat-out running the stop sign. I think we can agree that 4mph is not high speed.
      • bialpio 9y ago
        I always found it hard to understand what's so difficult in actually stopping when the sign clearly says "stop". The wording hardly leaves any room for misinterpretation, doesn't it?
        • freeflight 9y ago
          I'd guess some people want to keep a bit of the momentum going for fuel efficiency? Going from standstill to moving, with a big heavy metal box, requires more energy than simply accelerating an already existing momentum, even if it's just a small momentum. But I'm with you: Stop means stop
        • Retric 9y ago
          Many stop signs are placed such that stopping for them prevents you from safely observing oncoming traffic. So after stopping at a stop sign you still need to slowly inch forward checking that the path is clear making the stopping portion of the exercise absolutely pointless. Further my habit of actually stopping has gotten me rear ended and tossed into an intersection. Doing things unexpected can be very hazardous.
• nraynaud 9y ago
  They do exist in Germany.
  • Svip 9y ago
    Really? I've driven through much of Europe, and I've never seen a 4/all-way stop junction. Edit: That came across as if I was simply trying to dispute your statement, but I am genuinely curious to see an example of this in Germany.
    • jwandborg 9y ago
      We have at least one in Sweden, https://goo.gl/maps/kYZpAcQnD3n https://goo.gl/maps/kYZpAcQnD3n, it also has the sign subtext "flervägsstopp" /"multi-road-stop".
  • alkonaut 9y ago
    I'm guessing they actually do exist almost everywhere, but they are rare, and only typical in very slow traffic areas such as residential block intersections (see google map in next post) where you can't motivate building a roundabout or adding lights. Anywhere else they would be replaced by either traffic lights or a roundabout. Most importantly, you would avoid at almost any cost to cross two rural roads in a flat 4 way crossing. This is exactly where there is ample space to make a roundabout.
    • phicoh 9y ago
      In the Netherlands, a 4 four stop would lead to an instant deadlock. I.e., if you reach a stop sign then all traffic on the road you approaching has priority. There are no rules for solving this conflict. Because you cannot have two roads that have priority over each other. The Dutch equivalent of a 4 way stop is a raised intersection. Basically an intersection that is one big speed bump. Traffic is forced to slow down but otherwise normal priority rules apply.
      • alkonaut 9y ago
        > In the Netherlands, a 4 four stop would lead to an instant deadlock. I.e., if you reach a stop sign then all traffic on the road you approaching has priority. In a 4 way the same priority rules apply thatwould have applied if there were no stop signs. Obviously the signs have to make clear to everyone that it is a 4 way stop, so that you don't have 4 cars all thinkning they are in a 2 way stop. This is usually done with an additional sign under the STOP sign. After that it just works like any no-stop intersection, you yield to e.g. the car to the right (Sweden) or the first car to arrive (US) etc.
• aidenn0 9y ago
  At least 4-way stops have the same basic rules throughout the US (cars go in order of arrival). 2-way stops do not: Consider the case where the first car to arrive is turning left, but cannot do so due to traffic on the main road. Then a car arrives from the opposite direction going straight. Who is supposed to go first? In some states it's the car that reached the stop sign first, in others it's the car going straight.
  • GordonS 9y ago
    When I did my driving lessons many many years ago (UK), I was told that the car turning left would have right of way, because they weren't crossing a carriage way.
    • laymil 9y ago
      Left is across traffic in the US. Different sides of the road.
    • TomMarius 9y ago
      That's the same as everywhere else, just on the other side.
    • underwater 9y ago
      You have to flip it so the car is turnin right: across the path of the second car. In Australia the first car would have to wait. You can’t turn in front of a car going straight.
    • aidenn0 9y ago
      Sorry change "left" to "across traffic" (i.e. right in UK, Japan &c. left in mainland Europe and Americas)
  • tbihl 9y ago
    All this assumes drivers who know and follow rules. Where I live, I have to wait in a suicide lane to make a left, and sometimes drivers at the stop sign will try to steal the right of way to make their left first. And then there's the problem that it's accepted practice here to point your car and inch toward traffic as a way to request they give you an opening, despite the very significant risk involved in doing so.
• mnw21cam 9y ago
  There's a 4-way give way junction here [1]. That's the closest you will get in the UK. It means give way to anything that is in the junction before you are, but the actual effect is for cyclists to frequently be aggressively hooted at and nearly run over by cars. [1] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.2190575,0.1178374,105m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.2190575,0.1178374,105m/dat...
  • ptaipale 9y ago
    Interesting construction. This wouldn't be legal in Nordics, there can be no direction in give way signs indicated, and there can be no 4-way give way junctions.
    • mnw21cam 9y ago
      To be honest, I was quite surprised that it even existed, and it may possibly not be legal in the UK either.
    • kqr 9y ago
      There is at least two of those four-way yields in Stockholm, and yes, it is of course absolutely insane. In a regular junction you already have to 1) Yield to traffic inside the junction, 2) Yield to traffic approaching from your right. In a four-way yield junction, you have to 1) Yield to traffic inside the junction, 2) Yield to traffic approaching from your right, 3) ??????? to traffic approaching from the left. It breeds confusion and has no advantage over a regular intersection. Unless, of course, you count confusion as an advantage. Which you do if you drive the vehicle with the largest inertia around.
  • squiggleblaz 9y ago
    I think the UK has a lot of "mini roundabouts" where they just paint a circle on the road and mount roundabout signs. Traffic paths are similar to what they would be without the circle. Of course, the give-way rule is different: give-way to your left (easy), rather than give-way to those who arrived first (hard).
• u801e 9y ago
  The other thing about 4-way stop intersections in the US is that the right-of-way rules when two vehicles arrive at the intersection at the same time is not quite what one would expect. That is, the vehicle to the right has the right of way. If the intersection was controlled by a roundabout, then the vehicle to the left would have the right of way.
  • lsllc 9y ago
    In the US right-of-way for a 4-way stop is order of arrival, with yield to your right if you arrived at the stop line at the same time as someone else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-way_stop#Operation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-way_stop#Operation In general it works fairly well even in areas notorious for bad driving (although sometimes people steal a turn, I've never seen someone blow right through one, even late at night). Roundabouts are different. It's a one-way street that goes in a counter-clockwise circle, so naturally you if you are joining (effectively taking a right turn onto it) you must yield to traffic already on the roadway (that would be traffic coming from your left) as you would when turning right onto any street. Once you are on it, you now have right of way. 4-way stops are more deterministic, whereas traffic can get "starved" trying to enter a roundabout. However, you always must stop at a 4-way (even if it's a rolling stop), whereas you can blast through a roundabout if there's no-one to yield to.
    • u801e 9y ago
      > In general [4-way stop] works fairly well If you're not considering intersection throughput, then that may be true, but 4-way stops are one of the worst forms of intersection control when there's even a moderate amount of traffic. > Roundabouts are different. Of course, but what I was implying when I made my post is that a 4-way stop sign controlled intersection right-of-way rule is unusual compared to most traffic situations where one has to yield the right of way. At a yield sign, one typically yields to traffic coming from the driver's left. When entering a highway, one yields to traffic on their left. When making a right turn on red, one yields to traffic on their left after coming to a full stop. Only when coming to a 4-way stop are the right-of-way rules reversed it seems. > whereas traffic can get "starved" trying to enter a roundabout. One thing that's done in the UK is to add traffic lights at the entrances to busy roundabouts. When traffic gets heavy, the activate the traffic lights to regulate traffic flow to prevent the starvation scenario that you mention. To me, that's the best of both worlds where one isn't legally required to stop even when there's no traffic approaching.