So in your mind this is all about obeying a law... practical or not. Do you now obey all the laws on the books in your area? You may want to check on the laws in your area... http://www.idiotlaws.com/

Do you just want to argue?

I think I made my position clear, but in case you have a comprehension problem.

If I choose to ignore a given traffic law, I do so willing to accept the potential consequences. Though in general I obey most laws as a means of avoiding said consequences.

You seem to be missing a fundamental point here. With a stop sign, the cyclist is still required to yield the right-of-way. Complete stop requirement or not, there would always be a judgment call from a policeman on whether the cyclist yielded properly to cross-traffic. The Idaho Stop law wouldn't make it any tougher to determine right-of-way or ticket bicyclists who don't yield.

There's no evidence to suggest that a cyclist yielding to crossing traffic, then rolling, is under any more risk, or causes any more risk, than a cyclist waiting at a light for an arbitrary period of time and rolling on the green light. The most common mechanisms for car-bike collision involving adult bicyclists (the most risky situations for sober adult bicyclists) involve a lawful bicyclist being overlooked by a motorist in an intersection. Very commonly this is a left-turning motorist, a right turning motorist, or a red-light-running motorist tagging a lawful bicyclist rolling through a green light. Considering how many bicyclists run red lights and stop signs, accident statistics suggest that it wouldn't be riskier at all to allow the Idaho Stop, and concentrate on ticketing those who don't yield right-of-way.

I am missing nothing...

I am not talking about ticketing a failure to yield, but a failure to stop. Even the Idaho law requires the cyclist to slow and proceed with caution (basically as if it was a yield sign). Ticketing an automobile in a failure to slow at a yield sign seems to use the brakes lights as indicative of a failure to slow properly. Bicycles have no such positive indicator; hence, the creation of a situation for judgment on the part of the officer.

First, accident statistics are not evidence. It would not be a outrageous claim to say that most motorists exceed the speed limit at least part of the time, yet we do not have chaos in the streets. The reason is that most accidents don't have a single cause, but a sequence of issues that create the relatively rare occurrence.

Your examples of common cyclists involved accidents are straw men. The only reason to change the law is to allow lazy cyclists to shave a few seconds for each stop sign/light they come to... Without actual evidence of how that improves safety, it is not unreasonable to make the assumption that such a change actually decreases safety (I've posted my reasoning for such already).

Further, since as you already claim many cyclists already ignore the current law, what is to prevent them from ignoring the portion of the law that would require them to slow down at such intersections? Its already clear that those that support this, simply don't like the inconvenience of stopping why should they slow down, since slowing down will still accumulate most of the lost time they accumulate with an actual stop?

:bang:

pretty much sums up discussing this with myriddin

"Not evidence of." Nothing is evidence, it has to be evidence of something. What is it not evidence of?


It's not? I think it's just gonna make an ass out of you ;).

I would fire back by saying it's not unreasonable to make the assumption that removing all laws for bicyclists would make fairies dance happily in the streets. Go ahead, prove me wrong!



The very real consequence of getting hit by a car. The actual reason people check for cross traffic: Not the law, but the concern that there may be cross traffic.

It's sort of like why people speed as much as they do. They speed about 5 over because cops don't write tickets for that and it's not noticeably more dangerous (to them at least) than doing the speed limit. On days when "cops are out" "enforcing the law" they don't do 5 over.

Some even think they can track quota due dates and avoid speeding on those days.

Accident statistics, like any statistic are not evidence of cause and effect. They can be used to indicate probabilities, but in the context of something as complicated as the effect of a law change they are not positive indicators. Don't believe it then I suggest you take a look at both sides debating the effect of concealed carry laws on crime rates... Same kind of issue. Legal change and trying to use an indirect measure of the effect. As I have said, accidents do not usually have a single cause, hence one law change doesn't have a direct effect.

And no, I don't think it unreasonable, since one of the first comments posted in response to the blog link earlier was (I am paraphrasing); "Cool that way I will not even have to slow down. Takes a lot of effort to get my 250 pounds moving."

Also the OP in one of his later posts made the claim that since bicycles were more stable at higher speeds, not slowing down would actually be safer, which would also imply that he doesn't intend to even perform the slowing that the Idaho law requires.

I don't think self-preservation is a strong motivator for most people (particularly younger people who tend to think they are immortal); hence the prevalence of reckless behavior in general. Most people are far more motivated by personal convenience (hence the support of this law).

And finally, as to the fear of being hit by a car... I will again paraphrase the OP, "I am much more maneuverable on my bike and more able to avoid a collision."

I've changed my mind. I don't care about convincing myrridin. Everyone else, thanks for having a relatively reasonable discussion. A&S has improved.

You are correct that a cop does not have to use much judgement to establish whether or not a vehicle has stopped at a stop sign. But the officer will still use his or her judgement to decide, in the case of a failure to stop, whether or not to act. Police will use discretion to decide whether or not the failure to stop warrants pulling the vehicle over, and then will use discretion again to decide whether to write a ticket, or to just give a lecture. The police use discretion possibly more than any other level of the justice system.

I don't believe that the increased cognitive load required for a cop to determine whether a vehicle safely yielded, vs. to determine whether a vehicle stopped, is very large. I don't believe that it's any larger than when a cop must determine whether a vehicle is traveling too fast for the road conditions, which can also get you a ticket, and also requires the officer to exercise a little more judgement than determining whether a vehicle came to a complete stop.

In determining whether or not a vehicle has properly yielded, the officer doesn't have to observe whether the vehicle's brake lights came on. The officer will certainly use the activation of brake lights as a clue to help determine whether or not the vehicle properly slowed; another, more obvious, clue is if an accident occurred (which was used by the cop who gave my girlfriend a citation for driving too fast for conditions a few years back). But the lights can be activated, and the officer can still deem it necessary to issue a ticket, if the officer believes that the vehicle did not slow enough.

TL/DR: I think that you are making too much of the difficulty in determining and enforcing proper yielding. It's no big thing, cops do it every day, and it's well within the purview and ability of every police officer.

In 6 pages and 130+ posts I have not seen a single salient reason to not have the Idaho rules used everywhere. There have been several wild hair speculations plucked from nether regions and then argued to death, but nothing reasonable.
The fact is that I ride by these rules as do most of the cyclists in this area including the bicycle cops. It is time that the laws reflected the reality.

ha!

well.. no word from myrridin in 3 days - must be stuck somewhere out there at a malfunctioning red light, waiting for it to change. Hopefully someone is bringing food and water...