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.
Well… if you don’t want the bicycles to slow or stop on traffic lights, another ridiculous idea is to time the traffic light changes to the average speed of cyclists instead of cars.
If the old days they time the traffic light to cars so cars doesn’t have to stop at every traffic lights. Maybe now its the cyclists’ turn.
This way, you can keep the traffic rules equal and drivers who do not want to stop at intersection can drive as fast as the cyclist.
If you think cyclists will be too slow to reach the next traffic light, you can arrange the interval to use double the speed of cyclists, so the lights turn right in the middle between the two lights.
Then the Question will be, what is the average speed of cyclists on the streets?This was a dumb title OP.
Literally everyone in this thread didn’t read the article, didn’t comprehend what the Idaho stop rules are, and is just in here nonsensically bitching about cyclists getting run over thinking this rule will allow them to blow through all intersections willy nilly.
In my city as a bike if try stopping at stop signs for a car they give me right of way, usually. So sometimes I don’t stop at signs and then those drivers think I’m in the wrong. Patience is a huge factor because most people lack it
No. Be predictable. Fuck this noise.
Read the fucking article.
I did, thanks. I decline to agree with it’s premise, based on other articles I have also read.
Be.
Fucking.
Predictable.
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.
The fuck? They may not cause the same degree of damage, but they’re gonna get fucked up by a car that is following the law and has a green light if the two meet in an intersection…
This whole thing seems like it’s less a case of “bikers should run lights” and more a case of “cities need to be reviewed and many intersections should be updated with yield signs or traffic circles.”
No, they’re not. Have you never followed a yield sign before?
So here’s another angle. I’ll run reds on my bike when traffic is light, but I do it for the sake of the drivers. Surprisingly in Kelowna we have decent bike infrastructure, so in a lot of places I could just hit the button to change the lights immediately and give myself the right of way. Then I feel like an ass when three cars queue up at the red when I’m long gone. I’d rather just treat the red as a stop sign If it’s safe to do so.
I think it’s the nuanced case by case decision making that lower speeds and overall defensive nature of cycling offer isn’t understood by people who don’t bike regularly. Not sure what the solution is there.
The solution is what’s in the article, the Idaho stop rules.
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.
I don’t care about “everywhere”. I care about cities where most of the cycling happens.
In cities seems like the place where it’s least possible to separate bike lanes from streets. Are you really going to build over- and under-passes at every block?
The Dutch did it. The, Finns, the Danes did it. The Brits and the French are in the process of doing it.
And no, you don’t need over/under-passes everywhere, that’s silly.
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.
Yes, and those are streets where cars are the ones that have to slow the fuck down, and give priority to pedestrians, kids, and bicycles. Woonerfs. I.e., infrastructure.
More generally: the idea is that cities need to be restructured to make cycling and transit the preferred transit options with cars the “ok if you really must” option. Currently we are at the exact opposite polarity. Our infrastructure reflects this basic foundational choice. Idaho stops are still operating under that foundational choice. We need to rethink the foundation, therefore we need to rethink infrastructure. Then, instead of talking about giving new meaning to car centric signs, i.e., about making more space to humans in a car centered world, we would be talking about finding the right space for cars in a human centered world.
If that’s daft, then fine.
Ps. I’m not against the Idaho stop. If that’s what it takes to keep the cops from harassing cyclists and to keep some road rage at bay, that’s good. I’m against thinking it solves the problem.
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.
Exactly. I’m not in danger of killing anybody if I look both ways before crossing a intersection. I’m only going 15 mph on my ebike most the time. The only person I’ve injured on my bike is me, by falling off of it
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.
The rule change has nothing to do with making cyclists safer. It makes the cyclists’ current behaviour legal and predictable to everyone.
Basically (in a city below 50km/hr):
If a car runs a red light, the life at risk is someone else’s.
If a bike runs a red light, the life at risk is their own.
So there is a difference.
Simply not true though. Someone who doesn’t want PTSD from turning a human being into a big red crayon is going to make panic maneuvers, which could very well cause a different fatal crash. There are lots of “good” arguments as to why we should be able to ignore traffic signs under certain circumstances, but they all require that humans consistently get it right. Take the extra seconds to stop and make the roads safer for everyone, or if that is so much of an imposition, please just take the bus.
Read the article.
Read the comment. Helps if you understand the rule itself isn’t relevant to the consequences for getting it wrong.
So you’re just posting an irrelevant tangent on car accidents?
No, if you read the article you would know that the person making the case for the rule change thinks it would be justified because there are only consequences for the person on the bike. But he is demonstrably wrong, which is my point. That is what was being discussed in the original post I replied to. Not how the rule works. Just that there are indeed consequences to getting it wrong. If you don’t understand it, try reading the article and the comments again.
As a cyclist, there are a HANDFUL of corner cases where streets are set up in a certain way where it’s actually safer to disobey lights so that you can actually maintain visual awareness of what’s going on around you. I encountered this in Boston, which is about the craziest kind of street layout possible, and lots of times the only sane thing to do while driving a car is also illegal, and everyone just kind of understands that and lets things slide.
But outside of those edge cases, no. We’re not fucking special, if we’re gonna use the road, we have to use the road correctly. Most of this entitlement to different rules comes down to a segment of cyclists thinking they’re better than everyone else for not driving. Piss on that.
Read the article before posting.
There is no entitlement, and it’s not edge cases. The Idaho stop rules make sense in all cases.
Replace most of these:
With those:
Stop signs are stupid, shark teeth are cool too.
That is literally what the Idaho stop rule change is.
I know but I think this should happen for all vehicles. If we want lower speeds on back roads, we should speed limit or even better, narrow them instead of sprinkling stop signs that some people treat as yields.
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.
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.
Coming to Canada from Europe some decades ago, this was a shock. The “whoever stops first has the right of way” is so much worse, it’s not even funny. It requires much more attention, visibiltiy, consensus, to negotiate a simple intersection… It’s crazy. In practice, half the time people end up sitting and waiting for the other to go. The othe half, the more impatient people just go first.
As a Dutch citizen: NO, stop at red!
As a Canadian citizen,read the article before posting irrelevant nonsense.
Also, make a substantive point, you being Dutch is not a substantive point.
The headline is misleading to what is actually being proposed; the Idaho stop means treating stop signs as yields, and red lights as stops.
In Holland 🇳🇱 if you cycle through red while there’s a policeman on a bicycle or motorbike you’ll be getting a €120 fine.
Absolutely.
I’m fine with a simple yield on a stop sign, as long as you respect vehicle priority. But at a red light, you have to stop. It’s for everybody’s safey. Especially in a city.
Totally, why would you want to stop at a stop sign as a cyclist it’s not like you’re driving 50km/h
Yeah as long as you slow down a bit to check if there’s incoming cars or pedestrians you’re fine.
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.
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.
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”.
In a lot of place around the world where a green light needed to be triggered by metalic object, then the rule is really : Stop at red, only go when it’s safe. Else you will wait forever. In Netherland, the development favour cyclist and pedestrian so it’s best to follow the existing rule, as the experience is already smooth.
No stop at red? Okay!
Commas have meanings
In the Netherlands 3 died statistics often means a reevaluation of the crossing layout.
In Canada you’ll probably become an excuse to enforce pricy bicycle insurance & number plates and a ban on bicycles on large roads
You do realize I was making a joke, right? I’m well aware commas have meanings and I respect traffic laws.
I think the lawmakers here are maybe not considering all of the consequences.
Yes a bike won’t be able to cause as much damage to another biker or a vehicle if they don’t stop at a stop sign and then hit one.
Especially when compared to a vehicle hitting another vehicle.
But those aren’t the only two things at a stop sign or intersection. There are also pedestrians crossing the street, often with aight telling them that it is safe to do so. People with disabilities like blindness, people with children, etc.
What happens if there is a line of vehicles to the left of the bike lane blocking the view of the cyclist and they keep going straight since it’s a three way intersection, no road on the right so no vehicles to even worry about, and then a mother with a baby in a carriage steps out from in front of the vehicle at the front?
Sure a bike won’t do as much damage as a vehicle, but it can still certainly do a lot of damage in the right circumstances.
Did you read the article?
It does not allow cyclists to blow through stop signs. It requires them to treat them as yield signs, which means slowing down and yielding the right of way is someone else is going the other way.
I assumed reason to have bikes follow signs at intersections is to try and prevent cars that try to avoid them end causing a fatal accident to someone else. Predictable behavior I assumed reduces chances of accidents due to unknown variables causing large vehicles to suddenly make eradict maneuvers endangering other vehicles and pedestrians.
