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 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.