Nah, I didn’t get to be a 67 year old cyclist by doing dumb things in downtown rush hour traffic. In any case, starting from all those intersections when the light turned green was great training for the velodrome. I was a mediocre track cyclist, but my standing start was pretty good, due to getting out of the saddle and getting up to speed as fast as possible every single commute.

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.

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.

I think the unfairness psychological factor is often underappreciated. People have a very strong aversion to unfairness and that’s a part of reality no less than the real safety differences between cars and bikes running a stop sign. If we’re to change the status quo, it needs to take that into account and make people feel things are fair. E.g. if stops signs are treated as yield signs on most of the back streets, maybe change them to yield signs. And/or make new signs that except some vehicles from full stop where really needed. And start enforcing the rules of the road instead of letting people make their own rules, which produces chaos, injury and death. If some rule turns out to be impractical, enforcing it would get people to vote for changing it.

E: The quantity of stop signs on small streets in TO is TOO DAMN HIGH!

I stopped reading anything from The Conversation a long time ago. Such and idiotic title doesn’t encourage me to change that. Playing Frogger on a bike isn’t a good way to survive.

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.

What the fuck are you talking about?

How is treating a stop sign like a yield sign no predictable? You do realize that we have yield signs and people predictably follow them every single day right?

Replace most of these:

With those:

The Dutch, the Finn’s, and the Danes absolutely did not cover every single possible street with bike lanes. There are still numerous places where you have to bike on the road. Don’t be daft.

Read the fucking article before posting.

With Idaho stop rules, a stop sign becomes a yield sign, meaning that cyclists are still required to slow down and make sure it’s safe before proceeding.

Read the article.

That is literally what the Idaho stop rule change is.

Read the fucking article.

There are different rules for transport truck drivers, and there are different rules for pedestrians. Treating people who decided to go to the store in their 2 ton portable living room, that’s 3ft off the ground, with four reclining seats, and separated completely from the outside world by a bubble, the exact same as the guy walking or on a 30 lb bike is fucking asinine.

Read the comment. Helps if you understand the rule itself isn’t relevant to the consequences for getting it wrong.

That’s a very good point. Maybe you should read a fucking comment before you reply it. At what point did you see me say anything about the actual details of the rule? That isn’t relevant to my comment. We were talking about the faulty argument regarding the consequences of when people inevtiably get it wrong. If you have anything pertinent to add on that point, please comment.

It’s literally the last paragraph quoted on OP post.

So you’re just posting an irrelevant tangent on car accidents?