There are a few states that allow a bicycle to regard a stop sign as a yield sign, which is the safest alternative. Once you stop on a bike, you're slower getting across, and if you have to clip-in like I do, that takes some of your attention. Sometimes you're in the way of cars in back of you. Insisting that cyclists have to come to a full stop at a stop sign is putting the letter of the law over safety. Of course in any case, ya gotta be alert. If the car coming on the cross road has a heavily tinted driver's-side window so that I can't make eye contact, I'll let the bugger go first.