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The solution that’s never on the table is getting rid of most stop signs. The main point of a stop sign is to control intersections that objectively need the s

The solution that’s never on the table is getting rid of most stop signs. The main point of a stop sign is to control intersections that objectively need the stop to permit safe traffic flow. We are instead seeing unwarranted stop signs proliferate like rabbits, justified by things they can’t do, like slow or calm traffic. On top of that, we’re ignoring the problems _caused by_ unwarranted stop signs, including crashes that wouldn’t otherwise happen, increased noise, increased pollution (especially small particles in the stop sign’s vicinity), higher speeds that are induced after the stop sign (drivers make up for time lost at the stop), and the broader consequences of reducing credibility of traffic regulations overall (people aren’t stupid, and when they are conditioned to that stop signs are mostly pointless, the conditioning bleeds over to the whole regime of traffic regulations). Stop engineering malpractice, ditch most stop signs, and problem solved!

outside1234 5y ago
Amen - we need traffic circles in most circumstances - not stop signs!!!
- pooper 5y ago
  Yes, roundabouts make a lot of sense and I support them. However, how do you deal with the last mile? For example, here is a stop sign. Would we convert this to a roundabout as well? Maybe the problem is we have too many intersections? https://www.google.com/maps/place/610+Martha+St,+Euless,+TX+76040/@32.829408,-97.0860935,3a,75y,194.28h,82.97t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRSVfuQqr3eeVfFtlPXklNQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m5!3m4!1s0x864e8086c1045073:0xa5cdb7be7b599af!8m2!3d32.8294149!4d-97.0863615 https://www.google.com/maps/place/610+Martha+St,+Euless,+TX+...
  - com2kid 5y ago
    That should be a yield, not a stop sign! Preferably with a low 15-20MPH speed limit on a street that narrow.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      I guarantee you it is a yield, most people will rolling stop that. I’d just leave it unsigned entirely since it’s a three way, the incoming traffic has to slow down to make the turn anyway.
  - mikepurvis 5y ago
    How are intersections reduced? Closing them off with concrete blocks to create dead end streets? Creating more cul-de-sacs? I certainly don't want a world where every residential street is a windy suburban-style affair that goes nowhere. That just entrenches car culture and makes it impossible to run efficient mass transit.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      Effective is stopping the cars at points but not the people - Queen Anne in Seattle has many streets that become stairs at points because it’s too steep. You can also have portions of the road that block cars but allow transit as necessary. Cars should be discouraged and forced to go the long way around as it doesn’t harm them much, and gives an advantage to walking.
  - orthoxerox 5y ago
    This intersection is big enough that you can just put a big concrete half-ball or a flowerbed in the middle, put up a bunch of signs that show how to use it, maybe add some plastic lane separators that ease cars into a right turn. That's it, a roundabout.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  Maybe I need my mind opened but I can't imagine the space requirement for every side street intersection to become a traffic circle. Surely you're referring to intersections only between arterials?
  - bombcar 5y ago
    American streets are very wide. You kill parking near the intersection and you can add a small “roundabout” which is basically a diamond in the street preventing straight through.
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    Where there's not much space, you can just paint the circle [1]. I think that one probably exists because people are going south and east (to the two main roads), so it's not clear that either direction should have priority. The junction looks more-or-less the same size as the crossroads to the north. (Which, incidentally, has no signs, just road markings to indicate which road has priority.) For interest, move slightly south east to see the large roundabout between two main roads, then follow the A4540 north to see two more. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4875739,-1.9213084,194m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4875739,-1.9213084,194m/data...
    - brewdad 5y ago
      Drivers in the US are so bad that painting a circle will do nothing. The physical roundabout with curbs and landscaping near me gets driven straight through a couple of times a year. If it won't destroy your car, American drivers will disregard it when it is inconvenient.
      - Symbiote 5y ago
        Driving over a painted ("mini") roundabout could lead to a £50 fine if it's spotted by a police officer in Britain, although in many cases (when there's no other traffic) I think they'd just stop the driver and warn them not to do it again. (Driving over one in a bus, lorry or other large vehicle that can't make a tight turn is allowed.) Driving over a normal roundabout with curbs and landscaping is unheard of, there isn't a specific fine. The kerbs are usually tall enough that it risks damaging the vehicle. I think it would be considered fairly serious¹, as it shows either a serious lack of attention to the road, or a complete disregard for the rules. ¹ i.e. you get a fine and 3-6 penalty points on your driving licence, which increases your insurance cost. If you get 12 points you lose the licence and have to retake the driving test.
- tfigment 5y ago
  This. I've seen a few small ones in residential areas in California and they prevent speeding because you need to slow down as you cannot go straight but still allow flow faster than stopping 5 times.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    One division installed them badly as a retrofit and discovered they needed to add some really big rocks as people were just driving straight OVER the roundabout.
- zip1234 5y ago
  Only on bigger roads. Not very safe for pedestrians.
dopamean 5y ago
I've never heard an anti stop sign opinion before. I don't know what to think.
- elliottkember 5y ago
  It's not anti-stop sign. Stop signs absolutely have their place. The opinion is against the misuse of stop-signs, where other forms of traffic control are more effective. Unfortunately a grid system lends itself to 4-way stop signs because two roads at a right angle are equal. In a tree-shaped road system (like in much of the world) you have a main road and a side road. The side road gives way.
  - AuthorizedCust 5y ago
    It is anti-stop sign in the sense that it’s rational to ask for the vast majority to be deleted. The abuse is that rampant. Two-way yields can work fine on grid patterns.
- zionic 5y ago
  I've been saying this for a long time too. The VAST majority of stop-signs in the US should be replaced by yield signs. Also roundabouts are far superior, even many 4-way light intersections could be replaced with them.
  - pmontra 5y ago
    In my European experience roundabouts are better for cars safety, worse for bicycle safety (cars are driven closer to bikes), use up more land, increment gas consumption (almost stop and then go vs just go). The latter point could be debated because it's worse for the cars on the main road, better for the ones on the small ones.
    - bobthepanda 5y ago
      At least in the Dutch roundabouts I’ve seen that people hold up as a standard, bicycles are not supposed to take the lane but instead have a separated path along the perimeter. I think the grandparent comment is also coming from the US, where all-way stop intersections are extremely common.
chrisan 5y ago
I assume you mean "bicycle specific stop signs" and not all stop signs? Bikes don't have blind spots while vehicles generally do
- AuthorizedCust 5y ago
  I mean all stop signs. I have yet to see a single city where the vast majority of stop-sign-controlled intersections couldn’t have been better served with yield signs. Get rid of the vast majority of stop signs, and you’ve eliminated a huge amount of the problem this law seeks to solve.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    Is there data that you've read on this to back up your claims? I know there's a push to replace stop lights and signs with traffic circles. But I haven't heard the same for residential stop signs. I've just read that they prefer to eliminate 4-ways stops because 3-ways are much safer..
    - cortesoft 5y ago
      How are 3 way stops safer?
      - mikepurvis 5y ago
        Because the mentality is to stop, look, and wait for it to be clear, rather than stop and immediately just go. Stop and immediately go is particularly a problem for less visible road users like pedestrians and cyclists.
        cortesoft 5y ago
        Not sure how that would work where I am from… there are so many cars, the one direction that didn’t have the stop sign would be constantly full and the other three directions would just sit there.
eatonphil 5y ago
The only time I've ever not wanted a stop sign was because the intersection was so dangerous it should have had a stop light.
- AuthorizedCust 5y ago
  That may be an example of a warranted stop sign, which is unlike the vast majority that are going up today in cities.
- ahipple 5y ago
  I've seen fairly commonly in developing suburban scenarios something like "a through street with a new -- but very low-traffic -- intersection with a cross street". People are accustomed to driving fast on the through street, increasing the risks of the conflict at the intersection, but 99% of the time there is no conflict. The easy solution that's often chosen is to add a stop sign to these intersections, but this tends to result in largely-unnecessary stopping and starting, which then tends to increase the number of conflicts (because the traffic on the through street tends to congest at the new stop rather than passing quickly through it). A better solution would address the nature of the risk -- speed -- more directly. Traffic calming techniques like narrowing the road, or deflection (manufactured bends in the road or speed humps) would improve outcomes for all road users more than a stop sign that creates congestion (and therefore conflict).
chrisseaton 5y ago
America does seem to have an absolutely enormous number of stop signs. Here in the UK 99% of what would be a stop in the US is just an implicit yield - a road joining another road is a yield. Obviously it's a yield - you'd be mad not to yield - so no need for a sign.
- troyvit 5y ago
  That is like ... blowing my American mind. I'm imagining whole swathes of code in self driving cars that are just commented out before they deliver to the UK.
  - com2kid 5y ago
    A small road joining a larger road is also an implicit yield in America, but no one reads the bloody drivers manuals!
    - devilbunny 5y ago
      I had a driving examiner try to fail me for that very offense when I took my test long ago. I was in a neighborhood, on the vertical part of a T intersection with no stop sign present. I slowed until I had a clear view that there was no traffic approaching from either direction, then proceeded. I complained when I returned. Asked to be shown where that rule was present in the state's official driver's manual. It wasn't in there. I passed.
      - devilbunny 5y ago
        Because I am a moron who got distracted: the examiner insisted that I had run an implicit stop sign.
  - AshleyGrant 5y ago
    There are lots of rules that are implicit on European roads. You have to actually read the signs. And as an American, it really requires studying before attempting to drive there. As an example, in Germany, the speed limit on 2-lane highways is (from memory, it's been 5 years) 100 kph. But when you enter a town, which is designated by a specific sign that tells you the name of the town, the speed limit drops to 50 kph. There is no sign that says "speed limit is now 50 kph." It is implicit from the sign saying you are entering that town. Upon leaving the town, there will be a "speed restriction removed" sign. This doesn't mean there's no speed limit, it means the speed restriction has been removed and your speed limit is back to 100 kph. Yield or "give way" signs make tons of sense. Think of a small two lane road that crosses a four-lane highway. The cars on the larger road have the right of way and cars entering or crossing must give way/yield to that traffic. There's generally no need for a stop sign, but we as Americans are used to it and see it as the only way to do things.
ajmurmann 5y ago
When I first visited the US the frequent stop signs were one of the strangest things to me. They are so rare in Europe where there are yield and right of way signs instead. Ever since I've been wondering if the fossil fuel lobby is causing this to drive up fuel consumption.
- tasty_freeze 5y ago
  I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in the 70s. Our house was on a corner. The city decided that just about every uncontrolled intersection should have a stop sign, and for busy intersections, a 4-way stop. It happened that they put in the stop signs in the winter. We had a few weeks of entertainment watching out the front window as car after car was caught off-guard by the new stop sign. They'd try to panic stop at the last second and of course slide right into the intersection.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Yep, and when there's snow on the roads and a stop sign top of a hill, we treat them as yield signs so we don't get stuck on the hill.
- anarazel 5y ago
  The weirdest part for me is that there is no reliable way to tell if the crossing street also has a stop sign (at least in CA). After 5 years of living in the US I still get annoyed about it.
  - abcanthur 5y ago
    There (should) be a very small rectanglular sign right below the stop sign that says "4 way" meaning there are stops on all 4 corners. I've always thought these were way too small to notice and I wouldn't be surprised if they were often missing.
    - yibg 5y ago
      Those aren't there (at least not reliably) in California. One of the most frustrating parts of driving here for me too.
vikingerik 5y ago
Yup, it's an instance of warning fatigue. They exist because of the usual bureaucratic CYA risk-avoidance. "We have to do something, this is something" and "If it saves just one life" and all that, even though the vast majority of stop signs never will. Or even the cumulative man-hours lost by stopping exceeds that one life.
- AuthorizedCust 5y ago
  I find it’s more of a convenient way for cynical or buffoonic politicians or bureaucrats to shut up squeaky wheels. Nearly every last squeaky wheel requesting a stop sign is wanting a solution to something much more complex. Even though an unwarranted stop sign can’t solve the problem, it’s the cheapest and fastest way to solve the problem, so it’s chosen.
- cryptonector 5y ago
  It's also the lowest-cost "something". Installing speed control devices is expensive. Installing a sign is cheap.
giaour 5y ago
When I first moved to Seattle, the lack of stop signs in most residential neighborhoods blew my mind! But when I started biking to work, being able to just look both ways and breeze through without stopping was amazing. Not sure if Seattle is still like this or if it was confined to specific neighborhoods (I lived in Leschi until 2018).
- dan_quixote 5y ago
  It's still very common outside of the cores of highly urbanized neighborhoods. I generally like it, but sometimes the visibility isn't as well-maintained as it should be.
  - brewdad 5y ago
    Portland has some neighborhoods like this with uncontrolled intersections. They also allow cars to park all the way up to the curb, so it becomes a game of go and pray since you often can't see cross-traffic until you have already entered the intersection.
- aendruk 5y ago
  The stop signs haven’t changed (on that note we do have lots of traffic calming islands [1]) but we did get the “Idaho” stop in 2020. [1]: https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1hHn https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1hHn
- wsjeffro 5y ago
  This is common in a lot of Seattle neighborhoods, but the custom doesn’t extend beyond the city limits. For the most part it just works, but when I’m in a car with someone not from the city I always need to inform the driver or they just expect right of way. I lived near one of these intersections and personally witnessed two collisions over ten years. Neither were serious. I think these intersections largely work as a custom, save for the people not already accustomed.
- resonantjacket5 5y ago
  Seattle can do this with its much smaller neighborhood roads and their roundabouts. Many other American cities with their much larger (new) suburban roads have cars driving at 30/40 mph in the neighborhood
DaveExeter 5y ago
What I have started doing is simply ignoring some stop signs. Will I eventually get a ticket? Eventually, but it hasn't happened yet!
legalcorrection 5y ago
When your roads are laid out in a neat grid, like many US cities and suburbs, a lack of stop signs encourages you to treat residential streets like shortcuts to avoid traffic lights. People who live in those residential areas don't want a ton of cars cutting through their neighborhood and would prefer that those cars took the main streets. One way to make it unattractive to drive through residential streets is to put a stop sign at every corner.
zip1234 5y ago
Sure, they are not ideal. They are there because changing road design for safety is expensive and not something that engineers in the US seem to understand how to do. Removing stop signs doesn't magically solve anything. Road design needs to be changed to keep things safe.
- AuthorizedCust 5y ago
  > Removing stop signs doesn't magically solve anything. It sure does! Look at all the harms caused by unwarranted stop signs in my original post. Removing the vast majority of stop signs removes those harms, and since they couldn’t have solved any problem in the first place, their removal causes no novel, long term harm.
  - zip1234 5y ago
    How would yield signs would be better for pedestrians and pedestrian safety?
    - bombcar 5y ago
      Perhaps by making it clear to the pedestrian that they should confirm the vehicles are stopping before stepping into the road? I will never trust a vehicle no matter how much the law and signage is in my favor - I will see it stop before I move.
      - zip1234 5y ago
        Seems like the person walking may be waiting a very long time then.
cryptonector 5y ago
Stop signs often are placed mainly as a reaction to a tragedy, as a speed control device (neighborhood residents complain about speed, so the city lowers it, then they complain some more so the city installs more stop signs), or as a device to give police officers probably cause for stopping drivers. Speed control devices should be used instead, such as using curbs to narrow the street at intersections to just one lane's width.
- trgn 5y ago
  > neighborhood residents complain about speed Damn right they should complain about speed. Cars at high speed are just plain dangerous, and should slow down. Streets are so dangerous here for non-drivers. There needs to be much uch ore complaining AFAIC. > such as using curbs to narrow the street at intersections to just one lane' That'd be great!
hereforphone 5y ago
Would you feel the same if your child was killed at an intersection? The biggest problem with driving in my opinion is that everyone is in a useless rush. Speeding, rolling through stop signs. Putting more wear on the vehicle, consuming more fuel, and adding more risk, all for the sake of getting home literally just a few minutes earlier. And once home what do most do? The same thing they were doing in the car: sitting on their ass.
datadata 5y ago
In west coast cities, stop signs seem to serve the purpose of letting pedestrians exert their legal right of way where it would otherwise be taken by cars. Without stop signs, cars are not really likely to stop and pedestrians will wait until the road is simply clear rather than playing a one sided mortal game of chicken. The result is that cars can pretend that the pedestrian doesn't actually want to cross. With a stop sign, pedestrians can reason that a car has to stop for the stop sign, and so they will also be able to walk. That said I think stop signs is a terrible solution to this issue.
- tyrfing 5y ago
  Said it better than me, at the same time. It's also better than a fully controlled intersection with lights for pedestrians, since you don't have to wait for a light cycle or choose to cross on red. It's pretty sad to see people having to wait for a gap to sprint across a road, and little wonder that the situation perpetuates people driving everywhere - it's the safest and fastest way to even cross a street.
  - vladvasiliu 5y ago
    But there's an even better alternative to that: pedestrian controlled lights. There is a main road in France I often take, in the south Paris (RN 20), that goes through a small town. There are traffic lights that are only there for the pedestrians. When there's no one there, they'll be green for cars. When there are pedestrians waiting, they can push a button that'll switch the lights. Instead of the repurposed stop sign, this has the advantage that cars can flow through without stopping at all when there are no pedestrians, which is basically always. I've only ever stopped there a handful of times.
- throw_me_up 5y ago
  I think roundabouts with pedestrian crossing lights solves the problem. Roundabouts alone also reduce accidents or make them less severe.
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
diebeforei485 5y ago
This video is a great explainer: https://youtu.be/42oQN7fy_eM https://youtu.be/42oQN7fy_eM
steanne 5y ago
there's a similar issue with lanes. i grew up in a county with twisty mountain roads, and even in the flat valley areas roads tended to be more like a lane and a half wide rather than two. none of these roads had lanes painted and it was fine. if you saw someone coming and the road was too narrow, you both slowed down and eased past each other, and it's much safe to drive in the middle of the road on the twisty mountains, you just have to be situationally aware of oncoming traffic. someone from the state saw and freaked out, and lanes were painted. they were too narrow and not safe, but they had lanes!
RickJWagner 5y ago
Where I live (Arkansas) stop signs are being replaced by roundabouts. Seems sensible to me.
jimt1234 5y ago
Stop signs seem to be the current solution to roads that promote unsafe/fast driving. It's been demonstrated that narrow, non-straight roads promote slower, safer driving. This is the opposite of how roads have been built in most US suburbs for years.
trgn 5y ago
> , like slow or calm traffic. Perhaps that depends on the context a little. My city has removed some lights in my neighborhood, in favor of 4-way stops, and traffic is much calmer. No more the gunning it to try to make it through the intersection when it's green or orange. It feels so much safer when on foot or biking. Compared to what it was before, it's a real improvement.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  I love all-way stops on intersections where all roads carry broadly equal traffic. They're just so efficient, and very low-tech. But I hate them on unequal intersections, where a yield on the smaller road makes more sense.
hedora 5y ago
Unnecessary red turn arrows are my biggest complaint about driving in the bay area. This, coupled with multi minute light cycles greatly reduces intersection utilization, and doubles or triples all the commutes I've had. (East Bay, San Francisco, and South Silicon Valley don't have this issue.)
Spooky23 5y ago
Bad engineering won’t eliminate bad engineering. That’s not a defense of civil engineering culture, which tends to farm lots of free money from unnecessary work with little value. The stop signs everywhere are one example. Another I would cite is the end of my street, which was ADA compliant with a modern crosswalk, signals, etc. Unfortunately, the crosswalk lines and stop lines wore off, but the city DPW cannot just re-paint them… they need to spend ~$100k on a traffic study.
bgro 5y ago
I'm constantly amazed at the amount of bad engineering traffic engineers come up with. For example, there's a street near downtown Denver that has a stop sign that has a blind 270 degree off-highway-ramp with no stop that racers frequent. You're expected to keep an eye on every other direction and hope you don't get blind sided while pausing at the stop sign by someone going over 100mph off the highway from someone you have to extremely uncomfortably look behind you and around cement blockers for.

outside1234 5y ago

Amen - we need traffic circles in most circumstances - not stop signs!!!

pooper 5y ago
Yes, roundabouts make a lot of sense and I support them. However, how do you deal with the last mile? For example, here is a stop sign. Would we convert this to a roundabout as well? Maybe the problem is we have too many intersections? https://www.google.com/maps/place/610+Martha+St,+Euless,+TX+76040/@32.829408,-97.0860935,3a,75y,194.28h,82.97t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRSVfuQqr3eeVfFtlPXklNQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m5!3m4!1s0x864e8086c1045073:0xa5cdb7be7b599af!8m2!3d32.8294149!4d-97.0863615 https://www.google.com/maps/place/610+Martha+St,+Euless,+TX+...
- com2kid 5y ago
  That should be a yield, not a stop sign! Preferably with a low 15-20MPH speed limit on a street that narrow.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    I guarantee you it is a yield, most people will rolling stop that. I’d just leave it unsigned entirely since it’s a three way, the incoming traffic has to slow down to make the turn anyway.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  How are intersections reduced? Closing them off with concrete blocks to create dead end streets? Creating more cul-de-sacs? I certainly don't want a world where every residential street is a windy suburban-style affair that goes nowhere. That just entrenches car culture and makes it impossible to run efficient mass transit.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    Effective is stopping the cars at points but not the people - Queen Anne in Seattle has many streets that become stairs at points because it’s too steep. You can also have portions of the road that block cars but allow transit as necessary. Cars should be discouraged and forced to go the long way around as it doesn’t harm them much, and gives an advantage to walking.
- orthoxerox 5y ago
  This intersection is big enough that you can just put a big concrete half-ball or a flowerbed in the middle, put up a bunch of signs that show how to use it, maybe add some plastic lane separators that ease cars into a right turn. That's it, a roundabout.
mikepurvis 5y ago
Maybe I need my mind opened but I can't imagine the space requirement for every side street intersection to become a traffic circle. Surely you're referring to intersections only between arterials?
- bombcar 5y ago
  American streets are very wide. You kill parking near the intersection and you can add a small “roundabout” which is basically a diamond in the street preventing straight through.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  Where there's not much space, you can just paint the circle [1]. I think that one probably exists because people are going south and east (to the two main roads), so it's not clear that either direction should have priority. The junction looks more-or-less the same size as the crossroads to the north. (Which, incidentally, has no signs, just road markings to indicate which road has priority.) For interest, move slightly south east to see the large roundabout between two main roads, then follow the A4540 north to see two more. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4875739,-1.9213084,194m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4875739,-1.9213084,194m/data...
  - brewdad 5y ago
    Drivers in the US are so bad that painting a circle will do nothing. The physical roundabout with curbs and landscaping near me gets driven straight through a couple of times a year. If it won't destroy your car, American drivers will disregard it when it is inconvenient.
    - Symbiote 5y ago
      Driving over a painted ("mini") roundabout could lead to a £50 fine if it's spotted by a police officer in Britain, although in many cases (when there's no other traffic) I think they'd just stop the driver and warn them not to do it again. (Driving over one in a bus, lorry or other large vehicle that can't make a tight turn is allowed.) Driving over a normal roundabout with curbs and landscaping is unheard of, there isn't a specific fine. The kerbs are usually tall enough that it risks damaging the vehicle. I think it would be considered fairly serious¹, as it shows either a serious lack of attention to the road, or a complete disregard for the rules. ¹ i.e. you get a fine and 3-6 penalty points on your driving licence, which increases your insurance cost. If you get 12 points you lose the licence and have to retake the driving test.
tfigment 5y ago
This. I've seen a few small ones in residential areas in California and they prevent speeding because you need to slow down as you cannot go straight but still allow flow faster than stopping 5 times.
- bombcar 5y ago
  One division installed them badly as a retrofit and discovered they needed to add some really big rocks as people were just driving straight OVER the roundabout.
zip1234 5y ago
Only on bigger roads. Not very safe for pedestrians.

dopamean 5y ago

I've never heard an anti stop sign opinion before. I don't know what to think.

elliottkember 5y ago
It's not anti-stop sign. Stop signs absolutely have their place. The opinion is against the misuse of stop-signs, where other forms of traffic control are more effective. Unfortunately a grid system lends itself to 4-way stop signs because two roads at a right angle are equal. In a tree-shaped road system (like in much of the world) you have a main road and a side road. The side road gives way.
- AuthorizedCust 5y ago
  It is anti-stop sign in the sense that it’s rational to ask for the vast majority to be deleted. The abuse is that rampant. Two-way yields can work fine on grid patterns.
zionic 5y ago
I've been saying this for a long time too. The VAST majority of stop-signs in the US should be replaced by yield signs. Also roundabouts are far superior, even many 4-way light intersections could be replaced with them.
- pmontra 5y ago
  In my European experience roundabouts are better for cars safety, worse for bicycle safety (cars are driven closer to bikes), use up more land, increment gas consumption (almost stop and then go vs just go). The latter point could be debated because it's worse for the cars on the main road, better for the ones on the small ones.
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    At least in the Dutch roundabouts I’ve seen that people hold up as a standard, bicycles are not supposed to take the lane but instead have a separated path along the perimeter. I think the grandparent comment is also coming from the US, where all-way stop intersections are extremely common.

chrisan 5y ago

I assume you mean "bicycle specific stop signs" and not all stop signs? Bikes don't have blind spots while vehicles generally do

AuthorizedCust 5y ago
I mean all stop signs. I have yet to see a single city where the vast majority of stop-sign-controlled intersections couldn’t have been better served with yield signs. Get rid of the vast majority of stop signs, and you’ve eliminated a huge amount of the problem this law seeks to solve.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  Is there data that you've read on this to back up your claims? I know there's a push to replace stop lights and signs with traffic circles. But I haven't heard the same for residential stop signs. I've just read that they prefer to eliminate 4-ways stops because 3-ways are much safer..
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    How are 3 way stops safer?
    - mikepurvis 5y ago
      Because the mentality is to stop, look, and wait for it to be clear, rather than stop and immediately just go. Stop and immediately go is particularly a problem for less visible road users like pedestrians and cyclists.
      - cortesoft 5y ago
        Not sure how that would work where I am from… there are so many cars, the one direction that didn’t have the stop sign would be constantly full and the other three directions would just sit there.

eatonphil 5y ago

The only time I've ever not wanted a stop sign was because the intersection was so dangerous it should have had a stop light.

AuthorizedCust 5y ago
That may be an example of a warranted stop sign, which is unlike the vast majority that are going up today in cities.
ahipple 5y ago
I've seen fairly commonly in developing suburban scenarios something like "a through street with a new -- but very low-traffic -- intersection with a cross street". People are accustomed to driving fast on the through street, increasing the risks of the conflict at the intersection, but 99% of the time there is no conflict. The easy solution that's often chosen is to add a stop sign to these intersections, but this tends to result in largely-unnecessary stopping and starting, which then tends to increase the number of conflicts (because the traffic on the through street tends to congest at the new stop rather than passing quickly through it). A better solution would address the nature of the risk -- speed -- more directly. Traffic calming techniques like narrowing the road, or deflection (manufactured bends in the road or speed humps) would improve outcomes for all road users more than a stop sign that creates congestion (and therefore conflict).

chrisseaton 5y ago

America does seem to have an absolutely enormous number of stop signs. Here in the UK 99% of what would be a stop in the US is just an implicit yield - a road joining another road is a yield. Obviously it's a yield - you'd be mad not to yield - so no need for a sign.

troyvit 5y ago
That is like ... blowing my American mind. I'm imagining whole swathes of code in self driving cars that are just commented out before they deliver to the UK.
- com2kid 5y ago
  A small road joining a larger road is also an implicit yield in America, but no one reads the bloody drivers manuals!
  - devilbunny 5y ago
    I had a driving examiner try to fail me for that very offense when I took my test long ago. I was in a neighborhood, on the vertical part of a T intersection with no stop sign present. I slowed until I had a clear view that there was no traffic approaching from either direction, then proceeded. I complained when I returned. Asked to be shown where that rule was present in the state's official driver's manual. It wasn't in there. I passed.
    - devilbunny 5y ago
      Because I am a moron who got distracted: the examiner insisted that I had run an implicit stop sign.
- AshleyGrant 5y ago
  There are lots of rules that are implicit on European roads. You have to actually read the signs. And as an American, it really requires studying before attempting to drive there. As an example, in Germany, the speed limit on 2-lane highways is (from memory, it's been 5 years) 100 kph. But when you enter a town, which is designated by a specific sign that tells you the name of the town, the speed limit drops to 50 kph. There is no sign that says "speed limit is now 50 kph." It is implicit from the sign saying you are entering that town. Upon leaving the town, there will be a "speed restriction removed" sign. This doesn't mean there's no speed limit, it means the speed restriction has been removed and your speed limit is back to 100 kph. Yield or "give way" signs make tons of sense. Think of a small two lane road that crosses a four-lane highway. The cars on the larger road have the right of way and cars entering or crossing must give way/yield to that traffic. There's generally no need for a stop sign, but we as Americans are used to it and see it as the only way to do things.

ajmurmann 5y ago

When I first visited the US the frequent stop signs were one of the strangest things to me. They are so rare in Europe where there are yield and right of way signs instead. Ever since I've been wondering if the fossil fuel lobby is causing this to drive up fuel consumption.

tasty_freeze 5y ago
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in the 70s. Our house was on a corner. The city decided that just about every uncontrolled intersection should have a stop sign, and for busy intersections, a 4-way stop. It happened that they put in the stop signs in the winter. We had a few weeks of entertainment watching out the front window as car after car was caught off-guard by the new stop sign. They'd try to panic stop at the last second and of course slide right into the intersection.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Yep, and when there's snow on the roads and a stop sign top of a hill, we treat them as yield signs so we don't get stuck on the hill.
anarazel 5y ago
The weirdest part for me is that there is no reliable way to tell if the crossing street also has a stop sign (at least in CA). After 5 years of living in the US I still get annoyed about it.
- abcanthur 5y ago
  There (should) be a very small rectanglular sign right below the stop sign that says "4 way" meaning there are stops on all 4 corners. I've always thought these were way too small to notice and I wouldn't be surprised if they were often missing.
  - yibg 5y ago
    Those aren't there (at least not reliably) in California. One of the most frustrating parts of driving here for me too.

vikingerik 5y ago

Yup, it's an instance of warning fatigue. They exist because of the usual bureaucratic CYA risk-avoidance. "We have to do something, this is something" and "If it saves just one life" and all that, even though the vast majority of stop signs never will. Or even the cumulative man-hours lost by stopping exceeds that one life.

AuthorizedCust 5y ago
I find it’s more of a convenient way for cynical or buffoonic politicians or bureaucrats to shut up squeaky wheels. Nearly every last squeaky wheel requesting a stop sign is wanting a solution to something much more complex. Even though an unwarranted stop sign can’t solve the problem, it’s the cheapest and fastest way to solve the problem, so it’s chosen.
cryptonector 5y ago
It's also the lowest-cost "something". Installing speed control devices is expensive. Installing a sign is cheap.

giaour 5y ago

When I first moved to Seattle, the lack of stop signs in most residential neighborhoods blew my mind! But when I started biking to work, being able to just look both ways and breeze through without stopping was amazing. Not sure if Seattle is still like this or if it was confined to specific neighborhoods (I lived in Leschi until 2018).

dan_quixote 5y ago
It's still very common outside of the cores of highly urbanized neighborhoods. I generally like it, but sometimes the visibility isn't as well-maintained as it should be.
- brewdad 5y ago
  Portland has some neighborhoods like this with uncontrolled intersections. They also allow cars to park all the way up to the curb, so it becomes a game of go and pray since you often can't see cross-traffic until you have already entered the intersection.
aendruk 5y ago
The stop signs haven’t changed (on that note we do have lots of traffic calming islands [1]) but we did get the “Idaho” stop in 2020. [1]: https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1hHn https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1hHn
wsjeffro 5y ago
This is common in a lot of Seattle neighborhoods, but the custom doesn’t extend beyond the city limits. For the most part it just works, but when I’m in a car with someone not from the city I always need to inform the driver or they just expect right of way. I lived near one of these intersections and personally witnessed two collisions over ten years. Neither were serious. I think these intersections largely work as a custom, save for the people not already accustomed.
resonantjacket5 5y ago
Seattle can do this with its much smaller neighborhood roads and their roundabouts. Many other American cities with their much larger (new) suburban roads have cars driving at 30/40 mph in the neighborhood

DaveExeter 5y ago

What I have started doing is simply ignoring some stop signs. Will I eventually get a ticket? Eventually, but it hasn't happened yet!

legalcorrection 5y ago

When your roads are laid out in a neat grid, like many US cities and suburbs, a lack of stop signs encourages you to treat residential streets like shortcuts to avoid traffic lights. People who live in those residential areas don't want a ton of cars cutting through their neighborhood and would prefer that those cars took the main streets. One way to make it unattractive to drive through residential streets is to put a stop sign at every corner.

zip1234 5y ago

Sure, they are not ideal. They are there because changing road design for safety is expensive and not something that engineers in the US seem to understand how to do. Removing stop signs doesn't magically solve anything. Road design needs to be changed to keep things safe.

AuthorizedCust 5y ago
> Removing stop signs doesn't magically solve anything. It sure does! Look at all the harms caused by unwarranted stop signs in my original post. Removing the vast majority of stop signs removes those harms, and since they couldn’t have solved any problem in the first place, their removal causes no novel, long term harm.
- zip1234 5y ago
  How would yield signs would be better for pedestrians and pedestrian safety?
  - bombcar 5y ago
    Perhaps by making it clear to the pedestrian that they should confirm the vehicles are stopping before stepping into the road? I will never trust a vehicle no matter how much the law and signage is in my favor - I will see it stop before I move.
    - zip1234 5y ago
      Seems like the person walking may be waiting a very long time then.

cryptonector 5y ago

Stop signs often are placed mainly as a reaction to a tragedy, as a speed control device (neighborhood residents complain about speed, so the city lowers it, then they complain some more so the city installs more stop signs), or as a device to give police officers probably cause for stopping drivers. Speed control devices should be used instead, such as using curbs to narrow the street at intersections to just one lane's width.

trgn 5y ago
> neighborhood residents complain about speed Damn right they should complain about speed. Cars at high speed are just plain dangerous, and should slow down. Streets are so dangerous here for non-drivers. There needs to be much uch ore complaining AFAIC. > such as using curbs to narrow the street at intersections to just one lane' That'd be great!

hereforphone 5y ago

Would you feel the same if your child was killed at an intersection? The biggest problem with driving in my opinion is that everyone is in a useless rush. Speeding, rolling through stop signs. Putting more wear on the vehicle, consuming more fuel, and adding more risk, all for the sake of getting home literally just a few minutes earlier. And once home what do most do? The same thing they were doing in the car: sitting on their ass.

datadata 5y ago

In west coast cities, stop signs seem to serve the purpose of letting pedestrians exert their legal right of way where it would otherwise be taken by cars. Without stop signs, cars are not really likely to stop and pedestrians will wait until the road is simply clear rather than playing a one sided mortal game of chicken. The result is that cars can pretend that the pedestrian doesn't actually want to cross. With a stop sign, pedestrians can reason that a car has to stop for the stop sign, and so they will also be able to walk. That said I think stop signs is a terrible solution to this issue.

tyrfing 5y ago
Said it better than me, at the same time. It's also better than a fully controlled intersection with lights for pedestrians, since you don't have to wait for a light cycle or choose to cross on red. It's pretty sad to see people having to wait for a gap to sprint across a road, and little wonder that the situation perpetuates people driving everywhere - it's the safest and fastest way to even cross a street.
- vladvasiliu 5y ago
  But there's an even better alternative to that: pedestrian controlled lights. There is a main road in France I often take, in the south Paris (RN 20), that goes through a small town. There are traffic lights that are only there for the pedestrians. When there's no one there, they'll be green for cars. When there are pedestrians waiting, they can push a button that'll switch the lights. Instead of the repurposed stop sign, this has the advantage that cars can flow through without stopping at all when there are no pedestrians, which is basically always. I've only ever stopped there a handful of times.
throw_me_up 5y ago
I think roundabouts with pedestrian crossing lights solves the problem. Roundabouts alone also reduce accidents or make them less severe.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

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diebeforei485 5y ago

This video is a great explainer: https://youtu.be/42oQN7fy_eM https://youtu.be/42oQN7fy_eM

steanne 5y ago

there's a similar issue with lanes. i grew up in a county with twisty mountain roads, and even in the flat valley areas roads tended to be more like a lane and a half wide rather than two. none of these roads had lanes painted and it was fine. if you saw someone coming and the road was too narrow, you both slowed down and eased past each other, and it's much safe to drive in the middle of the road on the twisty mountains, you just have to be situationally aware of oncoming traffic. someone from the state saw and freaked out, and lanes were painted. they were too narrow and not safe, but they had lanes!

RickJWagner 5y ago

Where I live (Arkansas) stop signs are being replaced by roundabouts. Seems sensible to me.

jimt1234 5y ago

Stop signs seem to be the current solution to roads that promote unsafe/fast driving. It's been demonstrated that narrow, non-straight roads promote slower, safer driving. This is the opposite of how roads have been built in most US suburbs for years.

trgn 5y ago

> , like slow or calm traffic. Perhaps that depends on the context a little. My city has removed some lights in my neighborhood, in favor of 4-way stops, and traffic is much calmer. No more the gunning it to try to make it through the intersection when it's green or orange. It feels so much safer when on foot or biking. Compared to what it was before, it's a real improvement.

frosted-flakes 5y ago
I love all-way stops on intersections where all roads carry broadly equal traffic. They're just so efficient, and very low-tech. But I hate them on unequal intersections, where a yield on the smaller road makes more sense.

hedora 5y ago

Unnecessary red turn arrows are my biggest complaint about driving in the bay area. This, coupled with multi minute light cycles greatly reduces intersection utilization, and doubles or triples all the commutes I've had. (East Bay, San Francisco, and South Silicon Valley don't have this issue.)

Spooky23 5y ago

Bad engineering won’t eliminate bad engineering. That’s not a defense of civil engineering culture, which tends to farm lots of free money from unnecessary work with little value. The stop signs everywhere are one example. Another I would cite is the end of my street, which was ADA compliant with a modern crosswalk, signals, etc. Unfortunately, the crosswalk lines and stop lines wore off, but the city DPW cannot just re-paint them… they need to spend ~$100k on a traffic study.

bgro 5y ago

I'm constantly amazed at the amount of bad engineering traffic engineers come up with. For example, there's a street near downtown Denver that has a stop sign that has a blind 270 degree off-highway-ramp with no stop that racers frequent. You're expected to keep an eye on every other direction and hope you don't get blind sided while pausing at the stop sign by someone going over 100mph off the highway from someone you have to extremely uncomfortably look behind you and around cement blockers for.