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.
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...