Cars can be parked right up to the ped crossings, potentially obscuring what is happening. Looks like a death trap to me.
At a minimum, raising the crossings so that cars have to slow down, and having no parking zones in front the crossings would improve the situation by a lot.
Humans make mistakes all the time, intersections should be designed to accommodate that.
California recently made it illegal to park within 20 feet of a crosswalk:
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/news-and-media/dmv-highlights-...
SF hasn't started enforcing the law yet, and I suspect that 99% of drivers don't know about the law.
And the law actually states that local authorities can come up with their own distance rules instead.
OK, I see that now:
(4) Prior to January 1, 2025, jurisdictions may only issue a warning, and shall not issue a citation, for a violation unless the violation occurs in an area marked using paint or a sign.
> And the law actually states that local authorities can come up with their own distance rules instead.
I didn't know this!
(B) Notwithstanding subparagraph (A), a local authority may establish a different distance if both of the following requirements are met:
(i) A local authority establishes the different distance by ordinance that includes a finding that the different distance is justified by established traffic safety standards.
(ii) A local authority has marked the different distance at the intersection using paint or a sign.
As it stands, if there's a red curb or parking prohibition sign already next to a crosswalk, it dictates distance - whether longer or shorter - and there are a lot of intersections with those already that are much shorter than 20 feet - like where fire hydrants often are. If SF doesn't repaint/resign those, then nothing happens.
It's only for unpainted/unsigned areas where the 20 ft rule comes into place.
I ask because, here in Indianapolis, on my heavily-trafficked mixed residential/commercial street, drivers routinely ignore both painted curbs and painted parallel parking space markers for days at a time and seem to be rarely, if ever, ticketed for doing so.
But it's on the rider to make sure you're on the same page as the other drivers at the intersection, which some bikers don't and just blow through it without checking.
If a car ignores signals, the cyclist/pedestrian still dies.
These are not the same modes of traffic, and forcing everyone on earth to bend to the behaviors of the most dangerous mode of transportation is insanity.
I've seen this behaviour a lot. Several times I (walking) came up to a 4-way stop, stopped there briefly to see the cars in the other direction slow and stop, and then started to cross and nearly got hit by a cyclist who seemed to have not seen the stop sign at all.
Sure. It's a pain for cars to start and stop at every stop sign too. So?
Do you advocate for 70% of the drivers to be taken off the road?
And yeah, anyone rolling through stop signs shouldn't be driving. In cities that actually enforce traffic laws, you can get your license suspended for it.
There are laws and there are norms. The overlap is never exact.
It really bothers me that the laws don't reflect real life. It gives the authorities the ability to harass whoever they like for violating laws that are routinely ignored until a cop wants to start something. That's not okay.
I tend to agree, and obey the speed limit and come to a stop at stop signs when driving. I get passed by other drivers, sometimes dangerously, often illegally, several times a week.
I would have sympathy for driver complaints about cyclists who ignore inconvenient traffic laws if drivers were any more law-abiding.
If you want to drive faster, fine, change the speed limit. But don't just ignore laws you find inconvenient!
A fun bonus for this method is it seems to annoy the cars behind you even more when you actually come to complete stops, even though all drivers complain that cyclists don’t stop at stop signs.
So, majority of drivers can stuff themselves when they suddenly demand absolute perfect compliance from non-drivers.
That's a side effect of your choice, not an excuse to blow through stop signs.
Stop signs are put in places where I guess a yield sign proved to be dangerous to traffic?
The alternative isn't a yield sign, it's a redesigned intersection and likely a roundabout, or much smaller intersection, or similar.
That's not fair to pedestrians or other cyclists who can be injured by your decision to break the law and ignore their safety.
Why do I only see this phrase when someone is blaming cyclists? I bike everywhere but I'm not an "avid cyclist", it's just a tool for getting around. What is there to be "avid" about?
I suspect it's from people who think of cycling primarily as a sport or pastime, not a practical mode of transport.
>If you choose to blow through the stop sign because it "looks safe", you should bear the full responsibility for that decision
This is the "you're holding it wrong" mindset, where something doesn't work right, and people are blamed for not contorting themselves around it. If it looks safe, but isn't safe, then that's a problem with the road, not the people who use it. It should be redesigned.
4-way stop signs are stupid, there are better alternatives like roundabouts. UK and Europe have hardly any stop signs.
wholeheartedly agree, and just in general there are too many stop signs in the US;
but what's needed for cars going at 40-50 Mph is different than what's needed for cyclists who have the time to look both ways without necessarily having to come to a full stop (just like pedestrians crossing the road at places other than a crosswalk).
But if cars that take no physical effort of the driver to get moving again aren't expected to come to a full stop, it seems unfair to expect that of bikes. Of course if you blow through an intersection full speed without looking all bets are off and you probably get what you deserve, but I chafe at the bar being set at a "full stop or it was your fault" way of thinking, especially when the cyclist has so much more to lose.
Not to mention plenty of people in both are just dumb or ignorant of their surroundings
Humans are capable of gleaning from context.
> I feel that bikers actually obey traffic signs more than cyclists do.
Motorcycles have completely different traffic laws, both legally and socially... so yes they would follow car style traffic rules more closely than a cyclist.
If you weren't already doing it all along, that's kind of on you. It's literally on the driving test. I've been hit walking in a crosswalk by a driver who didn't check over their shoulder as I came up behind them while they were stopped. No injuries luckily.
GP is just a shitty driver, is my takeaway.
That goes for cars and bikes, and cars and pedestrians, and bikes and pedestrians.
Nope. The numbers of people killed or seriously injured in road collisions that don't involve motor vehicles are absolutely tiny. Motorists are dangerous, cyclists are not.
> Cyclists sometimes behave as though they are pedestrians and other times they behave as vehicles, depending on what is convenient.
And? Is that somehow bad? This seems to be a common motorist talking point, but I've never understood what it's supposed to imply.
Yes, it can be very bad. Drivers not being predictable is a big cause of car crashes. I was always taught that when driving, don't be nice, be predictable. It's also a large part of defensive driving. A cyclist that is sometimes acting like a vehicle, and at other times as a pedestrian is not nearly as predictable.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/28/why-john-fores...
Except when they ignore stop signs and blow through an intersection when it's not their turn, causing a car that has the right of way and is already in the intersection to slam on their brakes to try to avoid killing the cyclist, resulting in the car losing traction due to the weather conditions and to slide into a tree. Saw it happen in front of my eyes just a few days ago.
Or when to avoid stopping behind a car that was already in the turn lane in front of them, they hop up on the sidewalk and then cut off the car via the sidewalk, nearly running down several pedestrians. That one was earlier this afternoon.
Cyclists and pedestrians are not the same, and should not be treated the same, or interchangeably. I agree that the way that infrastructure is set up right now is terrible for cyclists. But it is how things are right now, and ignoring that is silly. It's not at all that different from how having pedestrians and cyclists sharing the same roadway is also not the best of ideas.
But in addition, you know those signs they have up on the side of the road, the "Share the Road" ones? Sharing goes both ways.
A shared space doesn't mean you're entitled to bringing an armoured, deadly machine into that space and expect others to take equal responsibility for the danger your machine is imposing.
I suspect you aren't merging into the bike lane when turning right and leaving space for a cyclist to pass you on the right. I've seen many drivers make that mistake. As a cyclist I never pass cars on the right in this situation because drivers don't check.
You are supposed to merge into the bike lane before turning. It's in the DMV handbook. The painted bike lane becomes a dotted line close to the intersection for precisely that reason.
This is a complete aside, but woah, is this common in SF? They simply aren't used here where I am (roundabouts are used instead)
Like they're uncommon enough that theres a news article on it in a different state: https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/motoring/fourw...
A four way stop sign seems like an absolute downgrade compared to a roundabout, but thats my local bias showing.
Very common in the UK instead of stop signs at intersections. Stop signs are only in rare places where a hedge or other environment prevents you from being able to see and yield to approaching traffic while approaching the junction. Even in that case there would never be a four way stop.
If that's true, then a human driver likely would've done the same thing: take its turn at the stop sign.
So a safe human driver would not have entered the intersection while the truck was obstructing vision.
That may have pissed off the people behind me, but at least I wouldn't be turning while blind.
We'll have to wait for more information to see if that description is accurate, but the car's action was a legal and safe thing to do based on the description given.
> but at least I wouldn't be turning while blind.
There is nothing in the article suggesting that the waymo was turning.
Edit: Nevermind I was visualizing the direction of cross traffic incorrectly. The cyclist's lane would have been to the left and closest to the Waymo, which means that the truck must have already been in the intersection when the Waymo started moving if it was obscuring the bike.
So either the Waymo got to the intersection later than the black truck and tried to sneak in a crossing, or they both got there at the same time but the Waymo came to a complete stop and then proceeded while the truck performed a rolling stop, or something similar.
That's a much fuzzier situation and will depend a lot more on details not being shared.
Sounds like the gov did the right thing. Cyclists shouldn't get special privileges. They're operating a vehicle on the roadway just like everyone else. Drivers of other types of vehicles shouldn't also have to remember special rules just for cyclists.
Drivers of any vehicle should learn all of the rules they need to drive safely and legally. It's not like there's a hundred different types of vehicles on the road. There's some special rules for trucks and motorcycles and bicycles and that's about it.
Plus, travel by bicycle is a net positive for society and I strongly support incentivizing it, including through preferential laws (even though I almost never do it myself).
All road users do have different rules for using the road: peds, cycles, scooters, motorcycles, cars, cargo trucks, buses, trams, etc. all have specific rules applying to them.
Let's also get rid of the lower speed limits for 18 wheelers, and weight limits on bridges. Why should passenger vehicles have all the fun?
How about lane splitting for passenger vehicles, just like motorcycles get to do?
This raises the question, should the car drive differently in those states?
https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2022-03/Bicyclis...
Usually in european countries when there are stop signs, they only apply to smaller streets/roads that connect to larger prioritary roads/streets. If we want equal level of priority for all directions we either use, traffic lights, roundabouts were usually the one already engaged in the roundabout has priority over people connecting to it or use priority from your right (default priority in France for example unless specified).
Who gets priority in a 4 directions stop sign?