You may be unaware, but 4-way stop signs are very uncommon outside of the US. In fact, in the UK they have always been formally prohibited by the Department for Transport in 2002.
As a European driver, I discovered the existence of 4-way stop signs when I moved to the US, and I have always found them dangerous in a counter intuitive way: drivers are so used to 4-way stop intersections, that they may adopt the habit of (1) doing rolling stops and (2) assuming an intersection with a stop sign is almost always a 4-way stop. Both of these 2 habits are dangerous... At least that's my personal experience. I prefer the consistency of my home country where every stop is a 2-way stop, therefore I'm never surprised by non-stopping traffic at an intersection.
What's special about a 4-way stop here? And a rolling stop is good enough to prevent a high-speed collision anyway.
> assuming an intersection with a stop sign is almost always a 4-way stop
Around here there is a good mix and I don't think that happens.
> I prefer the consistency of my home country where every stop is a 2-way stop
Well I personally hate going through 2-way-stop intersections that are over 25mph.
I think we can agree that 4mph is not high speed.
But I'm with you: Stop means stop
Further my habit of actually stopping has gotten me rear ended and tossed into an intersection. Doing things unexpected can be very hazardous.
It's a shame that following signs is unexpected. Somehow, it's not acceptable to run a red light because "no-one is around anyway", but it's fine to do rolling stops?
I ride several blocks to work sometimes and I take local streets which all have 4 ways stop signs.
9 out of 10 cars yield and refuse to go. I get the pedestrian treatment.
The prevalence of rolling stops is much reduced in countries where all intersections are 2-way stops.
It might be my imagination, but I seem to recall nearly all, if not all, 4-ways marked as such with a small rectangular placard below the stop sign in Virginia. I've seen them sometimes in California, but not even at the majority (not really any more common than the opposite sign "Cross traffic does not stop").
This is the key problem. Whether an intersection is a 4-way or 2-way stop sign changes the right-of-way of any person with a stop sign. (If it's 2-way, I must yield, but if it's 4-way and I've reached the intersection first, I have the right-of-way.) It is crazy that in the US, a person at a stop sign can't distinguish these two situations for certainly without looking to see if the other direction has a stop sign.
(Similar complaints can be made about flashing-red and flashing-yellow intersections.)
[1] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.2190575,0.1178374,105m/dat...
1) Yield to traffic inside the junction,
2) Yield to traffic approaching from your right.
In a four-way yield junction, you have to
1) Yield to traffic inside the junction,
2) Yield to traffic approaching from your right,
3) ??????? to traffic approaching from the left.
It breeds confusion and has no advantage over a regular intersection. Unless, of course, you count confusion as an advantage. Which you do if you drive the vehicle with the largest inertia around.
2-way stops do not:
Consider the case where the first car to arrive is turning left, but cannot do so due to traffic on the main road. Then a car arrives from the opposite direction going straight. Who is supposed to go first? In some states it's the car that reached the stop sign first, in others it's the car going straight.
Do you have a cite/link about this? I've heard people say different things, but I've never seen evidence that the left-turning vehicle has legal right-of-way in any state.
Most states' language is similar to California's 21801 which is must yield to vehicles "approaching frome the opposite direction which are close enough to constitute a hazard"
Not USA, but Ontario, CA actually does have this rule in 136.2[1]
Michigan found a 3rd option: If there are two cars going straight from one direction and one car waiting to turn left from the opposite, then it goes Straight, Left, Straight. This is regardless of the order that they arrive[2]
[edit]
I also find it absurd that this situation is not covered in every single States' driver's manual. After googling this, it's clearly contentious, and has been for years. If there ever was a situation that needed clarification it's this one.
I think it was New York's manual that had the section and had a list of questions "you should be able to answer" before proceeding (without answers provided). One of the questions was this situation, but I could not figure out the answer from reading the chapter!
1: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90h08#BK230
2: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(did15hikprdseomawdqif0jc))/...
Utah law only talks about who must yield. I use to believe that a person going strait had the right of way. Some of the confusion may come from the wording from different ways of entering the roadway. In Utah it says the following.
41-6a-903 Yield right-of-way -- Vehicle turning left -- Entering or crossing highway other than from another roadway -- Merging lanes. (1) The operator of a vehicle: (a) intending to turn to the left shall yield the right-of-way to any vehicle approaching from the opposite direction which is so close to the turning vehicle as to constitute an immediate hazard;
This doesn't actually apply to a stop sign because it says "other than a roadway". It also talks about "opposite direction" and not cross traffic.
The other part of the law that actually seems to apply is the following.
41-6a-902 Right-of-way -- Stop or yield signals -- Yield -- Collisions at intersections or junctions of roadways -- Evidence. (b) After having stopped at a stop sign, the operator of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to any vehicle in the intersection or approaching on another roadway so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard.
https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title41/Chapter6A/C41-6a-P9_180001...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-way_stop#Operation
In general it works fairly well even in areas notorious for bad driving (although sometimes people steal a turn, I've never seen someone blow right through one, even late at night).
Roundabouts are different. It's a one-way street that goes in a counter-clockwise circle, so naturally you if you are joining (effectively taking a right turn onto it) you must yield to traffic already on the roadway (that would be traffic coming from your left) as you would when turning right onto any street. Once you are on it, you now have right of way.
4-way stops are more deterministic, whereas traffic can get "starved" trying to enter a roundabout. However, you always must stop at a 4-way (even if it's a rolling stop), whereas you can blast through a roundabout if there's no-one to yield to.
If you're not considering intersection throughput, then that may be true, but 4-way stops are one of the worst forms of intersection control when there's even a moderate amount of traffic.
> Roundabouts are different.
Of course, but what I was implying when I made my post is that a 4-way stop sign controlled intersection right-of-way rule is unusual compared to most traffic situations where one has to yield the right of way. At a yield sign, one typically yields to traffic coming from the driver's left. When entering a highway, one yields to traffic on their left. When making a right turn on red, one yields to traffic on their left after coming to a full stop.
Only when coming to a 4-way stop are the right-of-way rules reversed it seems.
> whereas traffic can get "starved" trying to enter a roundabout.
One thing that's done in the UK is to add traffic lights at the entrances to busy roundabouts. When traffic gets heavy, the activate the traffic lights to regulate traffic flow to prevent the starvation scenario that you mention. To me, that's the best of both worlds where one isn't legally required to stop even when there's no traffic approaching.
When I lived in the US I always found it unnecessary that everybody has to stop. In Germany we always have a "main" road and a "secondary" road, and those on the main road don't have to stop. That priority pattern is kept from major roads to tiny roads. Then there's the "right before left" rule when the roads are equal - creating a priority without signs and without "everybody has to stop" rule.
This makes sense to me, and I don't see how other systems would be anything but worse. A signal would have a short cycle and only delay people during large parts of the day, a two-way stop would cause problems in one direction, it seems excessive to tear out a bunch of road to put concrete in, etc.
It is of course very natural that the roads in the US are built to completely different standards than Germany, given how incredibly different the layout of US cities are from German ones, broadly speaking.
St Peter Strasse / Von der Tann Strasse in Rorhbach in Heidelberg.
Sorry for causing a stir with my bad memory, I remembered that from my French point of view that would cause a deadlock.
Most importantly, you would avoid at almost any cost to cross two rural roads in a flat 4 way crossing. This is exactly where there is ample space to make a roundabout.
There are no rules for solving this conflict. Because you cannot have two roads that have priority over each other.
The Dutch equivalent of a 4 way stop is a raised intersection. Basically an intersection that is one big speed bump. Traffic is forced to slow down but otherwise normal priority rules apply.
In a 4 way the same priority rules apply thatwould have applied if there were no stop signs. Obviously the signs have to make clear to everyone that it is a 4 way stop, so that you don't have 4 cars all thinkning they are in a 2 way stop. This is usually done with an additional sign under the STOP sign. After that it just works like any no-stop intersection, you yield to e.g. the car to the right (Sweden) or the first car to arrive (US) etc.
The same can be seen in any intersection with red lights, as soon as the red lights don't work. You just crawl into the intersection, trying to take turns. It works.
If there's no working traffic lights and no stop signs, a different set of rules come into play.
The normal solution (used e.g. in Sweden) is to simply add a supplemental sign saying "multi-way stop" under the stop sign. https://d3h4jqp4au0mzy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/201...
Or it's a multi-way-stop (which is rare) in which case all roads have the supplemental sign. None of the roads have priority and all drivers can do to resolve deadlocks is be careful. All the supplemental sign does is inform drivers that OTHER drivers will also stop. It just removes the ambiguity we talked about above - where a driver at a stop sign might otherwise think he can't drive until the intersection is completely clear.
Ge- oder Verbot
1. Wer ein Fahrzeug führt, muss anhalten und Vorfahrt gewähren.
Edit: That came across as if I was simply trying to dispute your statement, but I am genuinely curious to see an example of this in Germany.
A great example is a 4 way stop at my former high school. Twice a day, everyone came and left causing a bit of a traffic jam. A two way stop would leave people in one direction waiting indefinitely, whereas a 4 way kept things chugging along rather nicely in both directions.
As a european 4 way stops seem really inefficient to me. If the intersection isn't that busy a 2 way stop (or no stop at all) favouring the more frequently used road is the obvious choice. If it's a busy 4 way stop however, can you really keep track of when other cars arrived at the stop? And if it's busy enough that you have to yield to the car to your right, chances are that everyone has a car to their right - so vague negotiation between drivers is required. Nobody wins in that scenario.
Also, roundabouts are the superior 4 way stops.
Figuring out who goes next is not remotely as difficult as you have made it out to be. Where I used to live, I would go through two four-way stops twice each day during peak traffic. There are generally two scenarios when you approach the intersection. In light traffic, you get to the intersection and nobody else is waiting to cross, or it is obvious who got there first. In moderate traffic, you will queue up behind one or possibly two cars. Once you get to the front of the queue, you wait for the cars on your left and right that are already at the front of the queue, and then you go. This is simple because each direction of traffic alternates, and it is reasonably fast because the queues are very short.
The real worst case scenario is that during light traffic four cars approach simultaneously, but not only is this extremely rare, but it is not really even a problem when it happens.
In my personal experience I have had far, far more problems in US cities on two-way stops when I am bicycling and a driver incorrectly yields when they have right of way.
I suspect that most Americans feel the same way about roundabouts that, say, Germans feel about 4-way stops. But please remember that roundabouts require more land and much more capital investment. The tradeoffs in the US are different.
Sounds like a high frequency traffic light, but less explicit.
Well, admittedly my experience with 4 way stops is nonexistent (never saw one in europe) and it may simply be a case of not being used to them, but I consider give-way intersections, 2 way stops, roundabouts and finally traffic lights as superior solutions - pretty much in that order and depending on how busy the intersection is. The goal should be to reduce breaking and full stops.
Except on the “compact real estate” axis. A plain intersection is always going to be smaller.
(Cattlemen Rd in Sarasota)
For the first year or two perhaps, but I wonder if the long term pay-offs might be worth it.
Motorists still tend to blow through roundabouts at speed if they can't see anything coming. From personal experience you can easily navigate a roundabout at 35+ mph.
If a roundabout is small enough, you can't. I have seen many small roundabouts throughout Europe that you cannot navigate without swerving faster than 20-30 km/h (which is assumed safe speed for pedestrian).
https://goo.gl/maps/cmLVxuhViyF2
The space it requires is not much bigger than the traffic light. That town replaced many of its intersections with roundabouts even in central and older parts of the city.
(You might say they went a little overboard with it, looking at the southern limits near that hospital.)
Stop signs and some speed bumps would soon slow them.
The suggestion that anything important should be screaming and blinking (otherwise the poor driver couldn't have noticed) is patently ridiculous. There's quite a lot of other, less conspicuous things that a driver needs to be aware of (such as pedestrians or potholes).
[1] https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/other_topics/fhwasa...
Determining the best option for a given case is more an at than a matter of simple preferences.
I've also had the same problem turning onto a crossroad without coming to a complete stop at the stop sign first.
I believe the only real solution is driver training.
Obviously you want to having bicycles or pedestrians in your roundabout so adding a bike/pedestrian path next to the roads has to be part of the plan if you want to do it right.
I strongly prefer those setups because they are much more fuel efficient.
However, I don't think any of that would work in the UD because it would require real driving classes and tests. I had to drive around for close to 20 hours with a professional driving teacher on to of dozens of hours of theoretical classes. All that end in a 30min+ examination with a examiner in the back of the car putting me through as many challenging situations as possible.
In the western U.S. (and eastern suburbs) the 4-way stops are largely vestigial; I'd agree that most of them could go away without any loss of safety. Many of the newer neighborhoods are signed that way anyway, though - I just drove through one this morning with 2-way yields.
My driver's ed class was IIRC 36 hours of instruction and 12 hours in the car, with a professional driving teacher. It had an hour long examination putting me through as many challenging situations as possible at the end.
And on average a person needs 38 hours in the car with a professional teacher before they pass the exam, most people don't pass on the first try.
And don't get me started on driver ed in PA, USA: in my case, it consisted of a video, signing an drivers' permit application - and voila, go out there and drive (under supervision). I was shocked, shocked.
Try 50+ years. Driverless cars aren't happening anytime soon, and certainly not to a level where you literally don't need a licence to drive one.
Some of the signs are only relevant to pedestrians and cyclists, or motorists looking for a place to park, so it's not that bad.
- pedestrian/cyclists signs can be made on the pavement instead
- which lane goes where is repeated 3 times - if it's so that you know them when you join the road, 2 can be moved to the side roads instead
- one of the right of way signs can go
- no parking can be replaced with a chain / bolards
- the end of pedestrian/cyclist path is useless since it's reopened after the crossing
Poland puts the repeated signs after each and every tiny side road. Many countries don't do that. Instead they rely on more informative big signs over the intersections that can be visible from further away.
In the end, stop signs end up being treated like yield signs. The only time they're properly treated like stop signs is when it's not possible to see cross traffic before you approach the intersection.
This definitely varies based on where in the US you are. In California almost no one comes to a complete stop. (That's probably why rolling through a stop sign is called a "California Roll"). But in many other parts of the country people do, even if there are no cars around.
In New England & NYC, a 4-way stop is usually used for urban neighborhoods where single-lane, low-traffic streets meet. Roundabouts and slip lanes are space-prohibitive in these situations (they'd have to go through privately-owned lots), traffic lights are overkill given the light traffic, and visibility is insufficient for a safe 2-way stop or yield.
In CA and other western states, these same neighborhoods are usually suburban houses with lawns, and even the apartment buildings have setbacks from the street. A yield would work fine, but either for habit or consistency, it's signed as a 4-way stop. Drivers feel like they have good visibility and it should be a yield, though, and so they roll through it.
It probably depends on where in CA. Have been living in Bay Area, mid-Peninsula, for 18 years and i've so far seen most people (and myself included) do complete stops. And just recently saw police stopped and cited a cyclist for the "California Roll" in Los Altos.
[1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=california%2...
From TFA there already is a give-way sign - drivers who should be yielding think they have good visibility, blast through the intersection at full speed, and kill somebody. The article suggests this could be due to the CBRD phenomenon.
Even if people treated the stop sign as a rolling stop sign, slowing down seems like it would help, at least WRT drivers not seeing people due to CBRD.
Of course there are fancier (more expensive) engineering solutions too.
I personally know maybe one other person, who knows that the location of the stop sign defines a line perpendicular to your lane and you're supposed to stop completely before this imaginary line. Almost no one knows this is the law. And sure as fuck no one actually does it.
I'd love to have a light saber for the sole purpose of cutting off everyone's goddamn front end of their car right along this imaginary line. Oh, your front seat is in the imaginary line? So sad...
I am inclined not to believe this. I have been told by a traffic cop before that if there is no marked stop line or crosswalk, there is no legally defined point where the stop must happen: it's just a "use reasonable judgment" kind of thing.
That was in NC. The following is apparently a quote from a statute in Washington State that contradicts your statement:
“every driver of a vehicle approaching a stop sign shall stop at a clearly marked stop line, but if none, before entering a marked crosswalk on the near side of the intersection or, if none, then at the point nearest the intersecting roadway where the driver has a view of approaching traffic on the intersecting roadway.”
Can you point to a statute somewhere supporting your claim?
And stopping right before the stop sign is what I was taught in driver's ed, not by my grandma.
One of the joys of driving in the U.S. is every state has it's own driving laws and while they're substantially the same, they are by far not identical (see lane splitting in California vs everywhere else, and turning right on red).
Also you'll find some states will define the intersection as including sidewalks, which is why you'll usually find the stop sign placed right before the sidewalk, not after it. http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/pedestrian-cross...
And traffic circles? Fuck that's super confusing! Americans would rather get into accidents at a four way stop than be confused in a traffic circle. That's why traffic circles are so uncommon.
The greatest number of accidents I’ve seen have been at stop lights rather than stop signs, weirdly. Driver apprehension and cautiousness at four-way stops may actually prevent more incidents than other systems.
I think the idea is that you should yield and only go when it is clear. But because of the length of the ramp, I think they are legally required to have a merge sign there. Invariably people fail to yield, and, since it is uphill, 'merge' into 45 mph traffic at 20 mph. And by merge I mean they just drive on and expect people to stay out of their way.
I have way more problems with people turning on red at the worst possible moment (despite lots of previous safe opportunities) than I do with yield signs though. But I don't doubt the GP's experience either. Drivers are very different in different states and regions of the U.S.
It seems the cyclists are blowing through the intersection as well. To me the problem is simply that it's an uncontrolled intersection where nobody is required to stop. Why blame the driver so much?
Same is true for bicyclists. Slow. The. Fuck. Down. At. Intersections.
The 'Give Way' sign is idiotic, put a Stop sign on the other, flatter road, or make it a 4-way stop. The drivers causing accidents were blowing through the intersection, and shame on the wording of the law that they were able to weasel out of harsher punishment.
Altering the roadway geometry, either as proposed, or more drastically with a roundabout, is a brute-force solution on this country road when other societal measures don't suffice, but it seems that there's plenty of room to enact other changes before you dig up the road.
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8638239,-1.4511249,3a,75y,26... [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8634141,-1.452595,3a,75y,269...