https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop
See the section on safety. It’s safer for bicycles to yield at stop signs instead of come to a complete stop. The most dangerous part of cycling is in an intersection, and you’ll spend more time in them when coming to a complete stop every time
As a cyclist, I’ve seen more motorists blow through stop signs than other cyclists, and they are the ones who can kill someone.
Idaho Stops need to come to Canada. Not only have they been proven to be safer, but it makes sense in a dozen different ways.
I’ve sat at red lights (as a cyclist) and the light DOES NOT CHANGE unless a car is waiting at that same light. We’re talking 10+ minutes. Who the hell thinks it’s OK for cyclists to have to sit there indefinitely when no other cars are around, just because of some outdated laws? We need to change with the times!
As a Torontonian cyclist, according to what I see, we blow through stop signs way more than cars. Way more. Of course physically we can mostly just harm ourselves.
But yes the rules of the road have to change in this regard. The status quo is clearly car-friendly. Not only it doesn’t prioritize cyclists, but it doesn’t prioritize pedestrians either.
BTW, ebikes help negotiating the status quo a lot. They make stopping at stop signs trivial, as well as keeping a safe speed when riding where there’s no bike lanes.
I’m east of the city, and we don’t have nearly the same amount of cyclists as you do, but only very few ever cautiously ride through a stop sign. I won’t lie, but I did see quite a few cyclists going through stop signs when I was in the city last weekend… not putting anyone in danger, just to save time.
I thought I read about a protest in Toronto where cyclists were stopping at EVERY stop sign as a large group, backing up traffic in an act of malicious compliance. I’d be totally down for that if crazy motorists didn’t turn their rage onto me, rather than onto these outdated rules.
I agree that e-bikes can level the playing field, but the general public shouldn’t need to have a powered bike to have fair rules, either.
That protest sounds amazing. Motorists can’t actively rage at a large group of cyclists. 🤭
Yes, ebikes shouldn’t be needed by everyone to cycle safely. The rules are bad and so is the infrastructure.
No way man, so many vehicles don’t come to a complete stop. I see it walking, and biking around Toronto. Think right on red - the only time cars come to a complete stop in Toronto is if they’re going to run over someone (and even then that stop them).
And the way our police enforce it here is that they expect a complete foot down stop, on some stretches in Toronto that’s a complete stop every 200m. Or a complete stop on a bike lane with a T intersection where there’s no chance of a car being there.
We were lazy and didn’t bother actually writing different laws for bikes and just sort of grouped them in with cars. And then we have dickheads like TPS or Barrie PD here ticketing cyclists for rolling through a stop sign.
I don’t agree that they do it more, but they do it a lot. That’s my anecdata. Now let me join you in toRANting about it.
Stop on right on red is a fucking abomination. No one stops. I have no stats but I bet this is where a huge proportion of pedestrians get maimed. People close to me were run over this way. I was once saved by a bus driver massively honking to warn me that an imbecile was turning right on red from the middle lane, at speed. At first I WTFed at the bus driver, a second later I was running to save myself from the incoming moron.
And the way our police enforce it
Police are enforcing anything? Yes I know this is a topic about cyclist getting ticketed in Barrie, but honestly, I think the TPS have completely abdicated from enforcing any road rules at this point. I will accept being ticketed for stop signs if they enforced those across the board, as well as most other common infractions like right on red, or … straight on red, which is now very common. Enforcement across the board will suck for some things but it will absolutely improve the status quo on the road. Things have gotten pretty bad over the last decade for all road users.
Ohio allows this. If the red doesn’t detect your bike it you can treat it as a yield
As a cyclist, I’ve seen more motorists blow through stop signs than other cyclists, and they are the ones who can kill someone.
Cyclists always try to use this defense/whataboutism way too often, without realizing that to a pedestrian, you on your bike are just as deadly as a car. Motorists are at least expected to know the rules of the road, cyclists openly oppose any sort of education and even act offended at the idea that they too should know the rules of the road they’re on. As a pedestrian in Toronto, cyclists are my biggest danger, not motorists.
without realizing that to a pedestrian, you on your bike are just as deadly as a car.
Statistically, that’s not true. A car at any speed can kill a pedestrian or cyclist. For a cyclist to kill a pedestrian, which is exceedingly rare, it would take a lot of speed and bad luck to result in a fatality. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of a cyclist killing a pedestrian at a stop sign.
But to be clear, I don’t advocate for cyclists blowing through stops when there are pedestrians around, since that’s obviously not obeying the right of way. I aim to be a defensive and respectful rider when I’m on my bike.
But I would still like to see more enforcement of stop rules being applied to motorists (and not cyclists on empty roads), since they really are responsible for the vast majority of catastrophic injury and death for pedestrians and cyclists.
At the same time, we can’t ignore that far too many pedestrians put themselves at risk, so everyone has some personal responsibility here.
Everyone keeps talking about how bikes can’t hurt pedestrians, meanwhile my wife’s aunt has permanent brain damage cause she got hit by a cyclist.
Motorists are at least expected to know the rules of the road, cyclists openly oppose any sort of education and even act offended at the idea that they too should know the rules of the road they’re on. As a pedestrian in Toronto, cyclists are my biggest danger, not motorists.
I think this is the most important part that you are ignoring here.
Certainly, cyclists aren’t as deadly as a motor vehicle. However, cyclists who don’t respect the rules are still very much dangerous.
As the other person said, as a pedestrian I too have been a victim of being hit by cyclists several times because they blew a red light. Several. Times. And each time I lay on the ground while the cyclist yelled and insulted me and ran away.
This has never happened to me with a motorist because the vast motorist respect rules and signage on the road and they understand the consequences.
I, myself, as a cyclist have been a victim of several other cyclists on the road, and in reserved bike lanes, who are not careful or respectful of other cyclists. I’ve been pushed over and ran into by other cyclists.
Attitudes and respect of the rules of the road need to change among cyclists.
For a cyclist to kill a pedestrian, which is exceedingly rare, it would take a lot of speed and bad luck to result in a fatality
Oh good, pedestrians will only need to work about being seriously hurt then, but probably not dead.
If a cop sees a car run the lights, that car will likely get a ticket. In most cases that I’ve seen it’s not that the laws are unenforced so much as there’s nobody with authority to do so witnessing the transgression.
I’m not of a fan of the whataboutism either. Many of us are all three. Objectively a pedestrian-cyclist crash is a lot less likely to leave you with a life changing injury than a pedestrian-car crash, purely due to the massive difference in energies involved. In order to get a more accurate intuition for the expected damage, you have to think about the energy involved. That’s given by the speed (squared) times the mass. A light car is about 10x heavier than a cyclist on a bike. For the same speed it has 10x the energy to impact on your bones and tissues. Therefore you should expect a lot more damage. That doesn’t mean that the large number of pedestrian-cyclist near-misses isn’t mentally impactful. They are and they do absolutely happen a lot. Getting scared regularly isn’t healthy or fun. Ironically though, cars going quietly at 30kph don’t feel as scary, yet they will easily maim pedestrians on impact, often permanently. My destroyed subtalar joint from a seemingly minor accident on a crossing can attest to that.
Considering how much stop signs are overused in North America, this is unreasonable. Either replace many stop signs with yield signs where safe to do so, or allow cyclists to pass through stop signs as if it they were yield signs. Holding momentum is important for cyclists.
I agree. I always make a judgement call when biking, and it doesn’t only benefit me. If I’m going to arrive at a stop sign before a car who will need to cross my path, then if I slow down and stop before continuing, I will take (ever so slightly) more time out of that driver’s day because of how much longer it takes me to speed up.
(Which is why I usually wave drivers through if we’re both stopped, since they can get out of my way much faster than I can get out of theirs. Sharing the road is about consideration and it goes both ways.)
While true, in the status quo, blowing through stop signs when other users have the right of way increases the probability of accidents. It puts the responsibility squarely in the person that has to decided whether to stop or not. The one that doesn’t have to stop is simply going their way. If there’s a monetary lapse of judgement on the cyclist’s side, they become a pancake. I’m staying this as someone who regularly “Idaho-maneuvers” in certain places.
Except that data from states which permit Idaho Stops (i.e. treating a stop sign as a yield, and a stop light as a stop sign) has not shown any increase in cyclist danger. The inverse is true, which is why Idaho Stops have been expanding into other states.
Do the drivers in Indaho know that cyclists are expected to be treating stop signs as yield? My guess is yes. That could be making a difference in the safety profile.
Noooooo.
They have those in France and it’s so dangerous! There are so many collisions that happen because of the right of way at intersections.
I’ve driven there and it’s freaking scary.
I think most European countries are designed this way. In my experience it just takes getting used to and is a bit uncomfortable, but it just feels so much more efficient, whether driving or on a bike. It feels unnecessary to have to stop at every block on a neighborhood street when there’s no one around.
The right of way thing I’ve only seen in France in my travels to Europe.
It’s so crazy. You have to assume that you don’t have the right of way, unless there’s a sign that says otherwise. (A yellow diamond with a thick white border) On any roads so you have to stop at every intersection. Not all intersections are obvious, especially in a city like Paris. And if you’re not aware of that rule or you just forget about it, which is easy if you’re foreign, then accidents can happen.
The French are actually thinking about putting up stop signs instead to reduce the number of accidents related to these situations.
If you’re gonna ride your bicycle on the road, you better stop at a stop sign. Don’t be an idiot.
I mean, I always yield at stop signs, but I am not likely to come to a complete stop on a bike if there is nobody to yield to. Many car drivers don’t either, as any road user is already aware.
“Oh they’re doing it so I can do it to,” said the pile of bones and guts spread out along the intersection.
Cars have a little more protection than a bicyclist for the occupants of the vehicle.
If anything, the fact that cars are more likely to injure another road user than their occupants, is even more reason that they should come to a complete stop, moreso than any other road user.
Cars and bicycles are two completely different things, and should have different rules governing them. A car is larger, deadlier, and takes longer to stop than a bicycle. A car going 40-50 kph is traveling with far more force, and won’t be able to stop as fast as a bicycle traveling 20 kph.
It’s like saying cars and planes should follow the same rules. Or even better, cars and semi trucks. There are highway speed signs that state one speed for trucks and one for everyone else. Or certain roads where trucks aren’t allowed to drive on. We already have a tiered approach to motor vehicles, it should extend to bikes as well. Blanket approaches don’t work in our modern world when we have cars, bikes, ebikes, escooters, etc all sharing the same space.
A lot of cyclists also get hit by blowing stop signs. I have seen too many people who just zip through without looking.
People driving cars should absolutely be cautious, don’t get me wrong on that. That being said, right-of-way won’t matter much if you’re dead. All it takes is one ahole not paying attention while driving and it’s game over for the cyclist. You could also use your argument for pedestrians to cross wherever and whenever they want. Pedestrians won’t kill someone like a car would either, but they are also still at risk.
I don’t know, I’ve just never understood taking that risk over saving a short amount of time. I have genuinely seen some people who have made me wonder how they survived so long.
I agree that the Idaho Stop should be implemented in more places, though. I’m pro-yeild, and anti-blowing stop signs for everyone.
Cars and bicycles share the same travel surface. In order to interact safely, they need to follow the same rules. Using your example, semis still need to follow nearly all the same rules as cars. There is a base ruleset for everyone who uses a roadway (including, one must come to a complete stop at a traffic control device that directs them to do so), and only specific modifications to certain rules for additional safety for vehicles in certain classes.
Here in Saskatchewan, bicycles fall under the Traffic Safety Act if they are on public roadways. That means they can be ticketed for exceeding speed limits or disobeying traffic control devices.
If different modes interact on the same travelway, they must share the same set of rules. If they don’t, you get conflicts, which means collision between vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles, and other wheeled modes of travel.
In my example the more dangerous vehicle (semi) has more restrictive rules. Should the less dangerous vehicle (bicycle) not have less restrictive rules? I’m not talking about no rules at all, but treating stop signs as a yield sign for a bike makes sense considering the shorter stopping time, slower speeds, and wider perspective (no parts of the car to potentially block vision) on bikes.
The point of stop signs is so that 1000+ kg vehicle doesn’t interact with traffic, usually from a side street onto a main street, without looking first. Or to ensure there is a known pattern at a 3 or 4 way stop. You need this when the average stopping distance for a car traveling 50 kph is 35 m in dry conditions. You don’t need the same safety measures with bikes because of the physics involved with a smaller, slower, faster stopping, etc bike.
Also, all of this is irrelevant to the point if we had proper bike infrastructure in cities there wouldn’t be a shared road space, or not nearly as much. The infrastructure is designed with cars and truck in mind, as are the rules. If we had more separation between the two methods of travel you would have fewer issues.
I agree, proper bike infrastructure would solve much of this issue. With that, many drivers treat stop signs as yield anyway.
I noticed when driving on a trip in Europe (Norway and Scotland) that many of the intersections where there would typically be a stop sign in North America had only a yield sign. It’s quite simple; give way to oncoming traffic and proceed when safe. Unfortunately, many North Americans think yield means ‘assume I’m going to proceed into this intersection and only brake if I have to while I’m rolling through the crosswalk’.
It mainly comes down to what other members of the travelway expect you to do. If you are predictable, your chances of conflicting with others is diminished. Unfortunately, unless you can convince lawmakers to make the change, a stop sign is going to mean come to a complete stop, which is also what others are expecting you to do.
Semi’s cause almost all fatal road accidents. I think a bigger blanket would only cause more issues
Amish buggies must follow the same laws, so do motorcycles, mopeds, golf carts, side by sides, pedal pubs etc. Bikes, especially now with E bikes making them faster, should follow the same rule set unless they are using their own bike path separate from the road.
Just stop for the signs guys, no big deal.
You’re comparing apples to oranges with the vehicles though. Besides the Amish buggies, which are fairly rare, everything on that list is powered by a motor/engine of some variety except the bicycle. Look at the speed of bikes compared to any of those other vehicles, they’re not anywhere nearly as fast. The only exception is ebikes, but again, this is an argument for a tiered system where there are different rules for different vehicles as they all interact differently. Ebikes are still supposed to be restricted to 32 kph and 500 W motor max in Canada, which is far slower than any car can do. If people are modifying them to go faster then that’s a different issue to be addressed.
The road infrastructure and road rules are designed around cars. Instead of applying old laws not designed for them, we need different rules for bikes as the times are changing. More and more people are using bikes as a method of transportation, they’re no longer leisure use only.
