The Colorado Safety Stop is the law of the land

Re:The Colorado Safety Stop is the law of the land by mynegation on Friday April 15, 2022 @12:19PM (#31042005)

I believe that law takes it into account. If you approach the intersection and there is an approaching vehicle that has a reasonable chance to collide with you if you proceed, then - by definition - intersection is not clear and you are obliged to stop. Let alone the fact that in the absence of 4-way stop that vehicle may have the right of way.

If restricted visibility does not allow you to assess whether the intersection is clear - stopping always is also the right thing to do.

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Re:The Colorado Safety Stop is the law of the land by ThatGeoGuy on Friday April 15, 2022 @10:29PM (#31048720)

This is actually what this law is about. The difference between a cyclist at a stop sign and your average vehicle is visibility. Cyclists don't have blind spots the way cars & trucks do.

So if you can reasonably see that there is no immediate traffic, you don't have to wait at an intersection and risk hoping that another driver at a 4 way stop will respect the stop sign. This whole law is being called the "Colorado Safety Stop" but was initially called an Idaho stop [1][2]. It resulted in a 23% reduction in bicycle crashes in intersections with STOP signs only [3].

Even if you think the results are not intuitive, they are certainly backed by data. Making this a law just means cyclists won't be harassed by law enforcement for doing what is statistically known to be safer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT_KdFCVEdc

[3] https://www.bikede.org/delaware-yield-crash-data/#page-conte...

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