Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Idaho's Stop-As-Yield law

Local bicyclist B.J. Smith recently tweeted an article about Idaho's Stop-as-yield law.

To quickly sum up the law (you should read the article anyway,) the law allows bicyclists to roll through a stop sign,
when a cyclist approaches an intersection controlled by a stop sign, the cyclist must slow to “a reasonable speed,” but is not obligated to stop unless doing so is “required for safety.” After yielding to any vehicle that has the right of way, the cyclist may proceed.
The points raised by the article all make a lot of sense,
[Stop signs] reduce [safety] by requiring cyclists to enter the intersection after a stop, with no momentum, which makes them less stable and poorly positioned to execute evasive maneuvers, if necessary.
I see two points there were not mentioned in the article, firstly is improve the efficiency of the auto traffic at an intersection by decreasing the amount of time necessary for a bicycle to clear the intersection, and in turn decreasing how long opposed automobiles must remain stopped.

Secondly, it increases safety by making bicycle traffic more predictable. It makes standard what many cyclists (and cars as well) do already, the rolling stop. By officially stating bike can perform a rolling stop in lieu of a complete stop, it makes it easier to predict what is going to happen when a car and a bike approach an intersection.

However, I would be interested in hearing what impact such laws have on the motored segment of traffic. Do laws like this make driver's feel like they should have the right to roll through stop signs thus causing more accidents, or does it enforce a set of rules for rolling stops thus decreasing accidents?

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