Like I feel like I'm talking to people on other planets right now. It's like you've never seen anyone do a rolling stop before. This isn't someone careening through an intersection at full speed. This is someone too lazy to actually bring their car to a complete, thud, stop and gently roll into the intersection at like 5 miles an hour. You're not risking pedestrian lives, you're risking a slightly more abrupt brake if there happens to be unexpected pedestrian or cross traffic.

Actually 5mph is quite fast. When I do a rolling stop in my car, it's typically on the order of perhaps 2mph, which is a speed where I can proceed in 1st gear without coming to a complete stop and then having to start again from a stop.

I just ran the math, the kinetic energy of a 2000kg car at 5mph is the equivalent of the kinetic energy of a 100kg bicycle+cyclist at 22mph.

I absolutely roll stops, but it's important to recognize what we might miss. My old commute had a series of 5 (virtually useless) stop signs in a row, an arterial with very little cross traffic but tons of 4-way stops. (should have been roundabouts). The routine of the drive, and the necessity to stop, the focus on the stop signs and stop lines, and the almost total lack of pedestrians meant that I'd occasionally start off before noticing the cross traffic or pedestrian. (yes, this is more of a boy-who-cried wolf kind of thing). Also, modern cars are amazingly difficult to see out of-- pedestrians can be hidden behind thick airbag-containing A pillars. When you're moving, however slowly, everything in your field of view is also moving. When you stop, it's much easier to spot objects that are NOT stopped.

Hell, just last week I was making a left turn on my bicycle. As I approached the intersection, I slowed, looked each way up the road several times as my sightlines improved, and just at the moment I committed to my turn and began to proceed, I saw the minivan coming from my left that was on a collision course with me; I locked up my brakes and stopped just in time. I know I looked exactly where the van was coming from, multiple times, but somehow missed it. I suspect, again, our brains are much better at seeing what's in motion when we are ourselves stopped.

The kinetic energy of he car doesn't matter -- you could put the mass of a planet behind the car, the pedestrian will still get hit the same way.

Drivers have vastly different reflexes and visual acuity.

I have been running for 25+ years and have on occasion been traveling at close to 10 mph and usually at least 8 mph. So California rolls are pretty much the bane of my existence.

This is primarily because the "roller" may be planning to take a right turn and are looking straight and glancing left and don't even look my way traveling from their right.

I do take responsibility for my own survival so I wear lights, and try my best to make eye contact before entering intersections etc. but I have had many close calls where they did not even see me due to their own target fixation.

Now that I am on a bike more often I feel even more insecure because my speed is so much higher.

I'm sure that every rolling stop you do you're utterly alert to potential obstacles from every direction, but I see plenty of "rolling stops" come far too close to doing damage for comfort, and it's usually damage to a road user who has the right of way.

I mean the main situation where I'd do one is a four way intersection that nobody else is at.

I guess I appreciate your caution, but you're evidently not at all representative of most drivers.

I never do rolling stops. I've been in situations at night where, if I had done a rolling stop, I would have gently hit someone on a skateboard or bicycle. Some people completely ignore vehicles at crossings. It almost feels like they're trying to get hit by a car.

OK, sure, but unless you have some extremely fast pedestrians where you live I don't see the relevance to the discussion of whether it's reasonable to do a rolling stop.