Zei

First of all, obeying a law for the sake of obeying the law is not an enlightened view. Stop signs are there for safety, so drivers don't hurt or kill anyone else. The general consensus is that the cyclists who don't stop at stop signs make sure it's safe to do so first.
We're slower, lighter, more maneuverable, and have a shorter braking distance. We're hardly any danger to others. If we make a bad judgement at a stop sign, it's our lives at risk, not anyone else's.

When only your safety is on the line, I say do what you feel comfortable doing. If other's safety is in jeopardy (and when you're in a car, it always is), that's what the law is for.

If I blow a stop sign and get hit by a law-abiding citizen, or somehow harm someone, I won't fight that I was in the wrong, but done correctly, the chances of this are atomically small.

I'm only advocating that not stopping at a stop signs is fine to do some/most of the time in suburban/rural areas. Urban cities have many more variables.

hueyhoolihan

this is good advice. i would add to stop if there is cross traffic visible and it is clear that it will reach the intersection before you.

baj32161

Really? I recently read s news story where a cyclist blew a red light in, I believe it was Hawaii, and killed an elderly woman. Secondly, while it may be your life, this kind of cavalier attitude seems to completely ignore the fact that this "bad judgement" can ruin the day, or the life of someone who may hit you because you saw fit to exercise such "bad judgement." Not all drivers who hit cyclists are inattentive, a$$hats. If you think getting hit because you ran a stop sign only affects you, you are sadly mistaken.

Juan Foote

It is according to when you ask me. On club night, when I am the ride leader...no, stop at stop signs. Out on the road in the middle of nowhere with no one coming, I might see it differently...

pallen

I'll start stopping at every stop sign when every driver doesnt speed on the freeway. If they want me to obey every law to the letter, even when its safe to ignore it, then they need to as well.

jsutkeepspining

my feelings, rural area: if its clear roll the stop sign (aka under 10 mph do not race through it). small town stop at everything just like i would in a car. i live right out side of asmall town, and i dont mind wasting an extra 3 mins to not look like an ass. in a crazy car situation stop at lights and stop signs and make sure its clear. Now my beliefe is alot different then most people's because i trackstand at everything, regardless of length (longest was 10 mins straight, standing out side of my team shop), so it is much easier to get going.

Zei

I didn't even have to read a news story to know that it's happened somewhere sometime to someone. I don't avoid being outside in a storm because lightening has killed people.

In the suburbs, no one walks anywhere, so there's no pedestrians to hit in the first place. (Gratuitous over-generalization, but in the hundreds of stop signs blown, I've encountered very few, and hit none.)

Not all stop signs gone through are "bad judgement." The ones that end badly are. It's all an exercise of GOOD judgement and avoiding making wrong judgement. Observe your surroundings; if there's still a question if it would be safe for you to cross, don't. Simple.

I don't think all the injuries I could sustain and the emotional trauma that would come with, or my death, compares to a broken windshield, a fright, and feelings of guilt.

An friend of mine had a motorcyclist t-bone his SUV while he was crossing during a green light. The guy on the motorcycle died instantly. It did affect my friends life, strongly for a year or so, slightly for the rest of his life. The motorcyclist had it a little bit worse, he was dead.

You don't tell kids not to play basketball in the street because "someone might hit you, and it'll ruin their day."

Ranger Dan

I had some work to do in the field today, and then a meeting to go to this evening, leaving me only an hour or so in which to get a ride in. I went past 4 houses during my hour long ride. No pedestrians today, although I did see a runner one day last week -- the same guy I saw once or twice last summer. I encountered 6 vehicles, including a tractor pulling a grain drill. That's 2 - 3X more traffic than I usually see, but it was 5:00 rush hour today, with people on their way home.

Five miles from home there is a stop sign. I could see about 1/2 mile in each direction as I approached the intersection. No cars, so I didn't stop. Chances are I won't stop the next time, either, although I would if there was a car approaching. I can't remember encountering a cop outside of town (1,000 people, 10 miles away) since I moved here in 1994, so I think it's safe to say my chances of getting busted or disrupting traffic are pretty low.

My point: I don't think you need to stop for every stop sign.

AlphaDogg

To be honest, I just checked this thread to see if CarlJohnson posted in here.

Rx Rider

traffic control signs control traffic. if there is no traffic there is nothing to control. if you stop at stop signs just because that's the law then Ward and June have done their job well.
I have to run stop signs because people in my town expect me too. even the cops at 4-way stops that have the right o way have waved me through, it's weird. mixed message weird, twilight zone weird, weird. traffic signals are stop signs but once it's clear, c-ya, never been yelled at. I often ride blacked out at night just to keep people driving like they normally would. kinda get tired of the special treatment.

Burton

Yeah - I've noticed that. Seems like grafitti, vandalism, drug addiction, domestic violence, racial descrimination and bicycle theft are all pretty 'trendy' in the US. I spent five years in Cali, Colombia, South America recently and saw less of any of those there then in any major US city I've ever visited. I'm thinking 'trendy' is over-rated and many supposedly third-world countries aren't really all that uncivilized.

Zei

Wowza. Not only is "grafitti, vandalism, drug addiction, domestic violence, racial descrimination and bicycle theft" a very broad grouping, likening graffiti to domestic violence, but you're tossing in running a stop sign on a bike into that mix, and using it to say civil disobedience is bad thing?

Lighten up, we're running through stop signs when it seems safe to do so; it's not going to cause civilization collapse.

(Also, tell us more about how little crime there is in Cali, Columbia.)

rebel1916

I can't wait for the mass of A&S types to descend and this thread to get even dumber.

merlinextraligh

I definitely don't stop at every stop sign. However, I also don't run them when there are cars at the intersection. Like it or not, running stop signs PO's a lot of drivers. No reason to give them more reason to be angry at cyclists.

If we want all the benefits of being treated as vehicles on the road, we need to act like vehicles.

A local club uses a pretty good slogan: Same Roads; Same Rights; Same Responsibilities.

RT

As soon as someone gets hurt for blowing a stop sign, this becomes a much different conversation.


'The policeman on your ride has no honor.'

Nachoman

If my group had a cop that rode with us I'd probably be rolling a lot more stop signs.

Phil_gretz

I'm 53 years old. I finally grew up sometime in my late 20s. I stop at stop signs when I drive. I mean always.

I don't always stop at stop signs when I ride my bike, as others have said here...but I do apply caution and common sense. In that regard, I'm guilty.

The best response was the one above, leaders lead, followers follow. The leader should decide what's safe for the group (slow, slow to stop, stop) before proceeding. That'd be my answer, too.

Urban Turkey

Just use common sense.
Don't run into sh*t.

echotraveler

+1

Ooompa Loompa

TrojanHorse

I think that's the point. I also stop at every single stop sign when I'm driving (because the consequences of failure are severe and potentially fatal for somebody) and I usually stop at stop signs when cycling depending on the environment but I know that MOST CARS perform what is known as a California Stop at best. At least in California, which is where I do 99.9% of my observing.

1 guy on a lonely road on a bike is different from a group of 50 in the burbs though. I just think it's asinine to blindly adhere to stupid rules when they're not relevant and even more asinine to get up on a soap box and preach about stopping at at stop sign regardless of the circumstances (not that you are doing the preaching).

RT

Unilaterally deciding what rules/laws are relevant, unless you are part of the legislative process, is the first step toward anarchy. Ok, that was sort of tongue in cheek, but still valid.

Stop and think (pun intended) about what is more important: Avoiding an accident, or your Strava score.

My son used to say, "But Dad, I won't have an accident." By definition, an accident is a harmful event for which there was no warning or foresight.

You don't see it coming, that is why the conversation changes once someone rolls a red and gets drilled by Joe Motorist. You will avoid the accident 99.9% of the time. It only takes one event to keep you off your bike.

[STRIKE]Good luck and safe riding, however you do it.[/STRIKE] Don't end up in a roadside ditch.

Seattle Forrest

If a guy in Canada heard about it happening once, many thousand miles and time zones away, in Hawaii, this is a case of the exception proving the rule. It's like somebody saying "I'll never do something as dangerous as being in an airplane, they crash sometimes." For every rare case of a cyclist killing a pedestrian, I can find you 25,000 cases of a car driving killing a pedestrian.

Commodus

I ride safely and courteously. Sometimes this means coming to a complete stop, sometimes it's not necessary.

snowman40

Irvine has some stops where you can see pretty far. Anteater and California come to mind on UCI campus. There are a few others in that area as well.