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As an Australian I find 4-way stop signs to be a form of madness. They don’t exist here. Put an island in the middle and call it a roundabout, or just choose an

As an Australian I find 4-way stop signs to be a form of madness. They don’t exist here. Put an island in the middle and call it a roundabout, or just choose an arbitrary street to have right of way. Either change makes the rules entirely objective. I’ve driven in the US and Canada, and I never understood the 4-way stop sign. Why do they exist? Non rhetorical question.

the_pwner224 6y ago
They're good in residential areas with smaller streets - one lane in each direction, and cars on the sides of the road. With a 4-way stop sign everything works well, and traffic stays slow since you're not going more than one block without stopping: no room to accelerate to fast speeds. Roundabouts take a lot of space. 2-way stops are dangerous because traffic can be going a bit fast for the small roads, and visibility is low. There's a two way stop near my house and it's always hard to see if another car is coming, until they're almost inside the intersection. Most of the intersections in the area are 4-way and they just work.
- robertsdionne 6y ago
  You can have tiny roundabouts: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.2437203,-110.9539392,84m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@32.2437203,-110.9539392,84m/dat... This one is also a 4-way, haha.
  - wasdfff 6y ago
    These are hillarious when they do implement them in the US. People stop anyway to yield. If anything it makes it a little more dicey to bike through because people also don’t signal when they are exiting.
craz8 6y ago
My neighborhood (In the Seattle area) has intersections with small, 4 way roundabouts that are combined with 2 way stops (there’s a main street no stop with 2 side streets with stop signs) It’s madness!
- r0m4n0 6y ago
  Ha! I was about to comment the same. Sacramento has the exact same thing, I regularly heard car accidents on this corner when I lived there. https://goo.gl/maps/YR29vXMf4HnNawT68 https://goo.gl/maps/YR29vXMf4HnNawT68 Making a left turn? I lived there for 5 years and I still don’t know who has the right away
  - sdevoid 6y ago
    Combining a traffic circle with stop signs is a recipe for confusion. One thing that Seattle has going for it here is it's very narrow streets, probably 1/2 the size of that intersection in Sacramento: https://goo.gl/maps/A1epH93AE8R28rZH7 https://goo.gl/maps/A1epH93AE8R28rZH7 That said, we also have 4-way intersections with no stop signs and no roundabouts. This is complete madness.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- dheera 6y ago
  There are a bunch in the bay area as well. Here are a handful in Palo Alto: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4461675,-122.1651786,3a,86.4y,328.28h,85.17t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sR0OiAAtuntuk-dzfrf4_yw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4461675,-122.1651786,3a,86.4... https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4505849,-122.162804,3a,75y,314.51h,83.83t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVXY4KkzU1HJENd-E5TX9BA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4505849,-122.162804,3a,75y,3... https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4522447,-122.1576615,3a,75y,133.09h,79.34t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfeSGnM_QkfDA38oigbzJuA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4522447,-122.1576615,3a,75y,... https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4250195,-122.1482505,3a,75y,305.58h,82.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLopwF-RlKOWc7c3yfJLr8g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4250195,-122.1482505,3a,75y,...
ajmurmann 6y ago
As an immigrant myself, my first assumption had been that the oil industry had lobbied for it, since it's a perfect recipe for frequent, often unnecessary stops and fuel consumption.
Dylan16807 6y ago
> Put an island in the middle and call it a roundabout, or just choose an arbitrary street to have right of way. Either change makes the rules entirely objective. 1. What is not objective about "everyone stops"? 2. Picking an arbitrary street to have right of way doesn't sound objective to me! If you're talking about what happens when multiple people approach, there are rules for that, just like rules are necessary when multiple people are using a roundabout at the same time.
- reitzensteinm 6y ago
  It's not arbitrary. A large street will always get right of way. If there is a grid of smaller streets running through a suburb of similar size, it alternates so every second street is a stop sign. 4 way stops sound like bad design to me, it seems like it would leave room for an aggressive driver to take off when they're not first in to an intersection, bullying their way through. Roundabouts and standard intersections in Australia do not suffer from this, as in both cases there is a clear right of way. If an accident happens, it's generally obvious who is at fault without the need for dash cam footage.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    > It's not arbitrary. Take that up with the comment I replied to, because they specifically said to choose an arbitrary one. > If there is a grid of smaller streets running through a suburb of similar size, it alternates so every second street is a stop sign. So on the positive side that's fewer stops, on the negative side you still have a lot of stops and you have watch out for crossing full-speed traffic every other block. I'm not saying that method is wrong, but it doesn't sound like a significant improvement. > 4 way stops sound like bad design to me, it seems like it would leave room for an aggressive driver to take off when they're not first in to an intersection, bullying their way through. Someone can bully through any small intersection. > Roundabouts and standard intersections in Australia do not suffer from this, as in both cases there is a clear right of way. If an accident happens, it's generally obvious who is at fault without the need for dash cam footage. Why would it be obvious less often in a 4 way stop? And since everybody stopped it should be extremely hard to have an accident without both parties being at fault. And roundabouts do not have perfect clarity either. If I'm about to enter a roundabout, and someone on the crossing street is about to enter in front of me at a slower speed, it can be ambiguous who actually gets into the roundabout first and who has to yield. That's a rare scenario, but so is confusion at a 4 way stop. If someone enters first, they get to leave first. If two people enter at the same time, the one on the right goes first.

the_pwner224 6y ago

They're good in residential areas with smaller streets - one lane in each direction, and cars on the sides of the road. With a 4-way stop sign everything works well, and traffic stays slow since you're not going more than one block without stopping: no room to accelerate to fast speeds. Roundabouts take a lot of space. 2-way stops are dangerous because traffic can be going a bit fast for the small roads, and visibility is low. There's a two way stop near my house and it's always hard to see if another car is coming, until they're almost inside the intersection. Most of the intersections in the area are 4-way and they just work.

robertsdionne 6y ago
You can have tiny roundabouts: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.2437203,-110.9539392,84m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@32.2437203,-110.9539392,84m/dat... This one is also a 4-way, haha.
- wasdfff 6y ago
  These are hillarious when they do implement them in the US. People stop anyway to yield. If anything it makes it a little more dicey to bike through because people also don’t signal when they are exiting.

craz8 6y ago

My neighborhood (In the Seattle area) has intersections with small, 4 way roundabouts that are combined with 2 way stops (there’s a main street no stop with 2 side streets with stop signs) It’s madness!

r0m4n0 6y ago
Ha! I was about to comment the same. Sacramento has the exact same thing, I regularly heard car accidents on this corner when I lived there. https://goo.gl/maps/YR29vXMf4HnNawT68 https://goo.gl/maps/YR29vXMf4HnNawT68 Making a left turn? I lived there for 5 years and I still don’t know who has the right away
- sdevoid 6y ago
  Combining a traffic circle with stop signs is a recipe for confusion. One thing that Seattle has going for it here is it's very narrow streets, probably 1/2 the size of that intersection in Sacramento: https://goo.gl/maps/A1epH93AE8R28rZH7 https://goo.gl/maps/A1epH93AE8R28rZH7 That said, we also have 4-way intersections with no stop signs and no roundabouts. This is complete madness.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dheera 6y ago
There are a bunch in the bay area as well. Here are a handful in Palo Alto: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4461675,-122.1651786,3a,86.4y,328.28h,85.17t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sR0OiAAtuntuk-dzfrf4_yw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4461675,-122.1651786,3a,86.4... https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4505849,-122.162804,3a,75y,314.51h,83.83t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVXY4KkzU1HJENd-E5TX9BA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4505849,-122.162804,3a,75y,3... https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4522447,-122.1576615,3a,75y,133.09h,79.34t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfeSGnM_QkfDA38oigbzJuA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4522447,-122.1576615,3a,75y,... https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4250195,-122.1482505,3a,75y,305.58h,82.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLopwF-RlKOWc7c3yfJLr8g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4250195,-122.1482505,3a,75y,...

ajmurmann 6y ago

As an immigrant myself, my first assumption had been that the oil industry had lobbied for it, since it's a perfect recipe for frequent, often unnecessary stops and fuel consumption.

Dylan16807 6y ago

> Put an island in the middle and call it a roundabout, or just choose an arbitrary street to have right of way. Either change makes the rules entirely objective. 1. What is not objective about "everyone stops"? 2. Picking an arbitrary street to have right of way doesn't sound objective to me! If you're talking about what happens when multiple people approach, there are rules for that, just like rules are necessary when multiple people are using a roundabout at the same time.

reitzensteinm 6y ago
It's not arbitrary. A large street will always get right of way. If there is a grid of smaller streets running through a suburb of similar size, it alternates so every second street is a stop sign. 4 way stops sound like bad design to me, it seems like it would leave room for an aggressive driver to take off when they're not first in to an intersection, bullying their way through. Roundabouts and standard intersections in Australia do not suffer from this, as in both cases there is a clear right of way. If an accident happens, it's generally obvious who is at fault without the need for dash cam footage.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  > It's not arbitrary. Take that up with the comment I replied to, because they specifically said to choose an arbitrary one. > If there is a grid of smaller streets running through a suburb of similar size, it alternates so every second street is a stop sign. So on the positive side that's fewer stops, on the negative side you still have a lot of stops and you have watch out for crossing full-speed traffic every other block. I'm not saying that method is wrong, but it doesn't sound like a significant improvement. > 4 way stops sound like bad design to me, it seems like it would leave room for an aggressive driver to take off when they're not first in to an intersection, bullying their way through. Someone can bully through any small intersection. > Roundabouts and standard intersections in Australia do not suffer from this, as in both cases there is a clear right of way. If an accident happens, it's generally obvious who is at fault without the need for dash cam footage. Why would it be obvious less often in a 4 way stop? And since everybody stopped it should be extremely hard to have an accident without both parties being at fault. And roundabouts do not have perfect clarity either. If I'm about to enter a roundabout, and someone on the crossing street is about to enter in front of me at a slower speed, it can be ambiguous who actually gets into the roundabout first and who has to yield. That's a rare scenario, but so is confusion at a 4 way stop. If someone enters first, they get to leave first. If two people enter at the same time, the one on the right goes first.