Cyclists may be right to run stop signs and red lights. Here’s why
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Drivers will criticize cyclists while drivers themselves rarely stop for a right turn on red and rarely make a full stop at a stop sign
Just look around in this thread and you will find driver talking as if all cyclist is bad.
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As a driver, I want to know what to expect from bike riders. Having them follow the same rules on the road cars do just makes sense.
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When traffic infrastructure is geared toward you and your safety, it’s easy and natural to follow the rules. If the traffic infrastructure is designed to make life convenient for car drivers while neglecting cyclists’ safety, don’t expect them to respect the rules over their own judgement.
Cool and when they get hit don’t blame the car drivers like they always do.
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As a driver, I want to know what to expect from bike riders. Having them follow the same rules on the road cars do just makes sense.
If cyclists are allowed to run stops, it better damn well go hand in hand with a requirement that they wear a fuck ton of hi vis and lights, and that if there is an accident between a car and a cyclist when the cyclist is running a stop, the driver bears zero responsibility.
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Just look around in this thread and you will find driver talking as if all cyclist is bad.
A lot of them are. Just roll through stop signs and red lights see it alot. And I’m fine but if you get hit it’s on you.
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A lot of them are. Just roll through stop signs and red lights see it alot. And I’m fine but if you get hit it’s on you.
A lot of driver did that as well, didn’t see such language pointed toward them.
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Cool and when they get hit don’t blame the car drivers like they always do.
Do you get mad if a pedestrian jay-walks across the street? A bike running a light after determining it’s clear is closer to a pedestrian jay-walking than a car running a light.
From my perspective, you are saying “the cyclist got hit by a car. But he didn’t act perfectly within the rules that weren’t designed with his safety in mind. Therefore, it’s his fault and not the one driving tons of metal at high speeds.”
This isn’t an individual problem, it’s an infrastructure problem. In Amsterdam where it’s so safe they don’t even bother with helmets, they follow the rules. In a place with unsafe cycling infrastructure, only the most risk-tolerant will ride. And they will act more recklessly while ignoring road rules that aren’t built for them. As infrastructure improved, more people will start riding that don’t want to act recklessly and people will want to act within rules that were made for them.
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How is this faulty? The degree of damage is incredibly relevant. We don’t make everything that could ever cause damage illegal, because we have nothing left. Laws are a balancing act of pros and cons to society.
A car has far less visibility (they are inside a box with a few windows) will will do far more damage if they hit someone. A cyclist has dramatically better visibility (they have basically an unobstructed 180° view) and especially when going slow is very unlikely to cause significant damage (posing risk of significant harm only the the most frail and elderly).
If not requiring complete stops for cyclists leads to 1% more cyclists on the road (because their travel is easier) it almost certainly causes less harm overall due to how dangerous cars are and also their indirect health effects (both inactivity when driving and the pollution).
So no, the logic isn’t faulty at all and probably one of the most important arguments.
It’s a faulty argument because it only considers the damage caused by the bike hitting something, not the consequences of other vehicles with the right of way making emergency maneuvers to avoid smearing the idiot who ran the stop. This guy has been sitting on his tenured ass and smelling his own farts for too long.
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It’s a faulty argument because it only considers the damage caused by the bike hitting something, not the consequences of other vehicles with the right of way making emergency maneuvers to avoid smearing the idiot who ran the stop. This guy has been sitting on his tenured ass and smelling his own farts for too long.
Cyclists must still yield to cars ahead of them at stop signs, as well as to pedestrians at all times, and may only enter the intersection when it is clear.
It would still be illegal for a cyclist to roll through a 4 way stop if it wasn’t their turn. My understanding is that they can only treat it as a yield if they have the right of way. Which makes sense.
Ideally cyclists would have their own dedicated infrastructure but until then we need to share the road.
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The title is a bit clickbait-y. I went into this one feeling strongly opposed it. Afterwards I’m still not sure, but I get that there’s some nuance to it.
Relevance:
In Québec and other parts of Canada, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.
Author: Steve Lorteau | Long-Term Appointment Law Professor, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Excerpts:
Interactions between different users on roads are often a source of frustration, the most prominent being those between motorists and cyclists.
For example, many motorists are frustrated when they see bicycles cross an intersection without coming to a complete stop, which drivers are required to do.
As a professor of law at the University of Ottawa who specializes in urban law issues, I have studied various regulatory approaches that have been adopted around the world, each with different advantages and disadvantages.
The uniform application of traffic rules may seem fair, but in reality, it can create a false sense of equality.
On the one hand, the risks associated with different modes of transport are incommensurate. A car that runs a red light can cause serious or even fatal injuries. A cyclist, on the other hand, is unlikely to cause the same degree of damage.
Furthermore, the efficiency of cycling depends on maintaining speed. Having to stop completely over and over discourages people from cycling, despite its many benefits for health, the environment and traffic flow.
Treating two such different modes of transport the same way, therefore, amounts to implicitly favouring cars, something akin to imposing the same speed limit on pedestrians and trucks.
Since 1982, cyclists in Idaho have been able to treat a stop sign as a yield sign and a red light as a stop sign. Several American states (such as Arkansas, Colorado, and Oregon) and countries, such as France and Belgium, have adopted similar regulations.
In Québec and other parts of Canada, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.
It’s important to note that the goal of the Idaho stop rule is not to legalize chaos on the roads. Cyclists must still yield to cars ahead of them at stop signs, as well as to pedestrians at all times, and may only enter the intersection when it is clear.
Bike how you want, but if you fail to follow the established rules for vehicles on the road and get injured, it’s totally on you.
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The title is a bit clickbait-y. I went into this one feeling strongly opposed it. Afterwards I’m still not sure, but I get that there’s some nuance to it.
Relevance:
In Québec and other parts of Canada, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.
Author: Steve Lorteau | Long-Term Appointment Law Professor, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Excerpts:
Interactions between different users on roads are often a source of frustration, the most prominent being those between motorists and cyclists.
For example, many motorists are frustrated when they see bicycles cross an intersection without coming to a complete stop, which drivers are required to do.
As a professor of law at the University of Ottawa who specializes in urban law issues, I have studied various regulatory approaches that have been adopted around the world, each with different advantages and disadvantages.
The uniform application of traffic rules may seem fair, but in reality, it can create a false sense of equality.
On the one hand, the risks associated with different modes of transport are incommensurate. A car that runs a red light can cause serious or even fatal injuries. A cyclist, on the other hand, is unlikely to cause the same degree of damage.
Furthermore, the efficiency of cycling depends on maintaining speed. Having to stop completely over and over discourages people from cycling, despite its many benefits for health, the environment and traffic flow.
Treating two such different modes of transport the same way, therefore, amounts to implicitly favouring cars, something akin to imposing the same speed limit on pedestrians and trucks.
Since 1982, cyclists in Idaho have been able to treat a stop sign as a yield sign and a red light as a stop sign. Several American states (such as Arkansas, Colorado, and Oregon) and countries, such as France and Belgium, have adopted similar regulations.
In Québec and other parts of Canada, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.
It’s important to note that the goal of the Idaho stop rule is not to legalize chaos on the roads. Cyclists must still yield to cars ahead of them at stop signs, as well as to pedestrians at all times, and may only enter the intersection when it is clear.
As someone that has been living in Montreal for the past four years, which locale this article brings up numerous times, and biking about 350/365 days a year, I have to highlight a couple things to readers not from Montreal, or maybe even from the other side of the pond:
- Canada doesn’t know what yield signs are. Stop signs are on every corner, which are mostly handled as if they were yield signs, but maybe not even that. And this applies to all traffic, not just cyclists.
- Canada also doesn’t know what “right has the right of way” is. In some European countries if you come to an intersection without a light, a yield or stop sign, you simply give way to the vehicle approaching from the right.
- The individual boroughs have a lot of disconnect between each other on how traffic is handled. While they are trying to have a unified approach, there’s a lot of Balkanization.
- Much of the infra is dated. A remainder of design from the 60s and 70s that had patchwork applied to make it more livable. Things like green wave, automated traffic control or elevated pedestrian crossings and bicycle lanes at intersections are unheard of. Most lights are just set to a fixed cycle and have been operating like the same way for years.
- Intersections, especially with new developments, will have very sharp corners with narrow sidewalk, with greatly reduced visibility.
So that said, I rarely ever see the NYC courier style red-light skips between columns of cars by cyclists. Whenever I see that happen, it’s trashy people that seem to have little regard for anything, even their own lives.
I do see cyclists regularly doing Idaho stops at full stop intersections, but it’s the same as cars. I think this is a traffic design issue and not an issue with driving culture or cyclists in general. Stop signs are simply a bad design, and this has been elaborated on many times.I also see a lot of people ride on the e-bike bixi fleet recklessly. They provide far too much speed assist with minimal effort. The same goes with the electric motor bikes with a throttle that somehow pass as e-bike just because they also have the option for pedal assist. However this is not a problem with the vehicles themselves, but rather the lack of education and handling. In most western European nations children are taught how to bike in traffic and adhere to traffic rules at an early age. I can attest to this as I have grown up in Germany, and in grade 4 elementary we had to get our Fahrrad Führerschein, which was basically an attestation of having a course completed, for children.
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Bike how you want, but if you fail to follow the established rules for vehicles on the road and get injured, it’s totally on you.
Who is it on if you completely follow the established rules of the road and get injured?
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The title is a bit clickbait-y. I went into this one feeling strongly opposed it. Afterwards I’m still not sure, but I get that there’s some nuance to it.
Relevance:
In Québec and other parts of Canada, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.
Author: Steve Lorteau | Long-Term Appointment Law Professor, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Excerpts:
Interactions between different users on roads are often a source of frustration, the most prominent being those between motorists and cyclists.
For example, many motorists are frustrated when they see bicycles cross an intersection without coming to a complete stop, which drivers are required to do.
As a professor of law at the University of Ottawa who specializes in urban law issues, I have studied various regulatory approaches that have been adopted around the world, each with different advantages and disadvantages.
The uniform application of traffic rules may seem fair, but in reality, it can create a false sense of equality.
On the one hand, the risks associated with different modes of transport are incommensurate. A car that runs a red light can cause serious or even fatal injuries. A cyclist, on the other hand, is unlikely to cause the same degree of damage.
Furthermore, the efficiency of cycling depends on maintaining speed. Having to stop completely over and over discourages people from cycling, despite its many benefits for health, the environment and traffic flow.
Treating two such different modes of transport the same way, therefore, amounts to implicitly favouring cars, something akin to imposing the same speed limit on pedestrians and trucks.
Since 1982, cyclists in Idaho have been able to treat a stop sign as a yield sign and a red light as a stop sign. Several American states (such as Arkansas, Colorado, and Oregon) and countries, such as France and Belgium, have adopted similar regulations.
In Québec and other parts of Canada, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.
It’s important to note that the goal of the Idaho stop rule is not to legalize chaos on the roads. Cyclists must still yield to cars ahead of them at stop signs, as well as to pedestrians at all times, and may only enter the intersection when it is clear.
Permission to exercise discretion does not mean cyclists will blindly roll through danger. No one is more aware of the risk of cycling in traffic than cyclists. Riding defensively is a necessary state of mind. A rule change will have no effect on that.
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Bike how you want, but if you fail to follow the established rules for vehicles on the road and get injured, it’s totally on you.
Give me cycling infrastructure of comparable quality to car infrastructure and we got a deal.
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The title is a bit clickbait-y. I went into this one feeling strongly opposed it. Afterwards I’m still not sure, but I get that there’s some nuance to it.
Relevance:
In Québec and other parts of Canada, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.
Author: Steve Lorteau | Long-Term Appointment Law Professor, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Excerpts:
Interactions between different users on roads are often a source of frustration, the most prominent being those between motorists and cyclists.
For example, many motorists are frustrated when they see bicycles cross an intersection without coming to a complete stop, which drivers are required to do.
As a professor of law at the University of Ottawa who specializes in urban law issues, I have studied various regulatory approaches that have been adopted around the world, each with different advantages and disadvantages.
The uniform application of traffic rules may seem fair, but in reality, it can create a false sense of equality.
On the one hand, the risks associated with different modes of transport are incommensurate. A car that runs a red light can cause serious or even fatal injuries. A cyclist, on the other hand, is unlikely to cause the same degree of damage.
Furthermore, the efficiency of cycling depends on maintaining speed. Having to stop completely over and over discourages people from cycling, despite its many benefits for health, the environment and traffic flow.
Treating two such different modes of transport the same way, therefore, amounts to implicitly favouring cars, something akin to imposing the same speed limit on pedestrians and trucks.
Since 1982, cyclists in Idaho have been able to treat a stop sign as a yield sign and a red light as a stop sign. Several American states (such as Arkansas, Colorado, and Oregon) and countries, such as France and Belgium, have adopted similar regulations.
In Québec and other parts of Canada, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.
It’s important to note that the goal of the Idaho stop rule is not to legalize chaos on the roads. Cyclists must still yield to cars ahead of them at stop signs, as well as to pedestrians at all times, and may only enter the intersection when it is clear.
This whole discussion is a distraction. The real solution is to have proper cycling infrastructure. You don’t need to reinterpret road signs if bikes have their own signs in their own protected lanes and protected crossings.
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As a Dutch citizen: NO, stop at red!
The headline is misleading to what is actually being proposed; the Idaho stop means treating stop signs as yields, and red lights as stops.
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The title is a bit clickbait-y. I went into this one feeling strongly opposed it. Afterwards I’m still not sure, but I get that there’s some nuance to it.
Relevance:
In Québec and other parts of Canada, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.
Author: Steve Lorteau | Long-Term Appointment Law Professor, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Excerpts:
Interactions between different users on roads are often a source of frustration, the most prominent being those between motorists and cyclists.
For example, many motorists are frustrated when they see bicycles cross an intersection without coming to a complete stop, which drivers are required to do.
As a professor of law at the University of Ottawa who specializes in urban law issues, I have studied various regulatory approaches that have been adopted around the world, each with different advantages and disadvantages.
The uniform application of traffic rules may seem fair, but in reality, it can create a false sense of equality.
On the one hand, the risks associated with different modes of transport are incommensurate. A car that runs a red light can cause serious or even fatal injuries. A cyclist, on the other hand, is unlikely to cause the same degree of damage.
Furthermore, the efficiency of cycling depends on maintaining speed. Having to stop completely over and over discourages people from cycling, despite its many benefits for health, the environment and traffic flow.
Treating two such different modes of transport the same way, therefore, amounts to implicitly favouring cars, something akin to imposing the same speed limit on pedestrians and trucks.
Since 1982, cyclists in Idaho have been able to treat a stop sign as a yield sign and a red light as a stop sign. Several American states (such as Arkansas, Colorado, and Oregon) and countries, such as France and Belgium, have adopted similar regulations.
In Québec and other parts of Canada, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.
It’s important to note that the goal of the Idaho stop rule is not to legalize chaos on the roads. Cyclists must still yield to cars ahead of them at stop signs, as well as to pedestrians at all times, and may only enter the intersection when it is clear.
You gotta ask “Why do we need traffic lights?”. The answer is “because of motor vehicles”, so I don’t think cyclists should be disadvantaged by something that is not required because of them.
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I think it is a little different given the physical demand of starting and stopping is on the person rather than on machinery. Adding say a dozen stops to what would have otherwise been relatively smooth speed on a bicycle will significantly increase the energy expended by the person cycling.
The point is that it’s the same for literally every mode of transportation. Including walking. In fact it is more energy expensive for cars, since the accelerate faster, accelerate to a faster speed, and weigh a lot more.
Saying that the energy is spent by the person instead of the machine might not be the best argument, since on rich countries people actually want to spend more energy from themselves, and less energy from their car.
There are many other reason why bikes should be treated differently. But energy efficiency is BS.
For example another commenter said how it physically hurts stopping so much on a bike. Which is actually a good argument. I don’t mind wearing out my car as I do wearing out my joints.
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This whole discussion is a distraction. The real solution is to have proper cycling infrastructure. You don’t need to reinterpret road signs if bikes have their own signs in their own protected lanes and protected crossings.
Bike infrastructure isn’t going to be possible everywhere. Idaho stop makes cycling better everywhere.
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As a Dutch citizen: NO, stop at red!
As if any Dutch cyclist would adhere to any traffic rules. The only thing in traffic that bikers in Rotterdam seem to respect is the tram. Anything else, be it signs or traffic lights, is treated as “decorative” or “optional”.
