The title is a bit clickbait-y. I went into this one feeling strongly opposed it. Afterwards I’m still not sure, but I get that there’s some nuance to it.
Relevance:
In Québec and other parts of Canada, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.
Author: Steve Lorteau | Long-Term Appointment Law Professor, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Excerpts:
Interactions between different users on roads are often a source of frustration, the most prominent being those between motorists and cyclists.
For example, many motorists are frustrated when they see bicycles cross an intersection without coming to a complete stop, which drivers are required to do.
As a professor of law at the University of Ottawa who specializes in urban law issues, I have studied various regulatory approaches that have been adopted around the world, each with different advantages and disadvantages.
The uniform application of traffic rules may seem fair, but in reality, it can create a false sense of equality.
On the one hand, the risks associated with different modes of transport are incommensurate. A car that runs a red light can cause serious or even fatal injuries. A cyclist, on the other hand, is unlikely to cause the same degree of damage.
Furthermore, the efficiency of cycling depends on maintaining speed. Having to stop completely over and over discourages people from cycling, despite its many benefits for health, the environment and traffic flow.
Treating two such different modes of transport the same way, therefore, amounts to implicitly favouring cars, something akin to imposing the same speed limit on pedestrians and trucks.
Since 1982, cyclists in Idaho have been able to treat a stop sign as a yield sign and a red light as a stop sign. Several American states (such as Arkansas, Colorado, and Oregon) and countries, such as France and Belgium, have adopted similar regulations.
In Québec and other parts of Canada, discussions are underway to adopt such regulations.
It’s important to note that the goal of the Idaho stop rule is not to legalize chaos on the roads. Cyclists must still yield to cars ahead of them at stop signs, as well as to pedestrians at all times, and may only enter the intersection when it is clear.
You gotta ask “Why do we need traffic lights?”. The answer is “because of motor vehicles”, so I don’t think cyclists should be disadvantaged by something that is not required because of them.
This whole discussion is a distraction. The real solution is to have proper cycling infrastructure. You don’t need to reinterpret road signs if bikes have their own signs in their own protected lanes and protected crossings.
Bike infrastructure isn’t going to be possible everywhere. Idaho stop makes cycling better everywhere.
I don’t care about “everywhere”. I care about cities where most of the cycling happens.
In cities seems like the place where it’s least possible to separate bike lanes from streets. Are you really going to build over- and under-passes at every block?
The Dutch did it. The, Finns, the Danes did it. The Brits and the French are in the process of doing it.
And no, you don’t need over/under-passes everywhere, that’s silly.
The Dutch, the Finn’s, and the Danes absolutely did not cover every single possible street with bike lanes. There are still numerous places where you have to bike on the road. Don’t be daft.
Yes, and those are streets where cars are the ones that have to slow the fuck down, and give priority to pedestrians, kids, and bicycles. Woonerfs. I.e., infrastructure.
More generally: the idea is that cities need to be restructured to make cycling and transit the preferred transit options with cars the “ok if you really must” option. Currently we are at the exact opposite polarity. Our infrastructure reflects this basic foundational choice. Idaho stops are still operating under that foundational choice. We need to rethink the foundation, therefore we need to rethink infrastructure. Then, instead of talking about giving new meaning to car centric signs, i.e., about making more space to humans in a car centered world, we would be talking about finding the right space for cars in a human centered world.
If that’s daft, then fine.
Ps. I’m not against the Idaho stop. If that’s what it takes to keep the cops from harassing cyclists and to keep some road rage at bay, that’s good. I’m against thinking it solves the problem.
Bike how you want, but if you fail to follow the established rules for vehicles on the road and get injured, it’s totally on you.
Give me cycling infrastructure of comparable quality to car infrastructure and we got a deal.
Who is it on if you completely follow the established rules of the road and get injured?
Read the article before posting.
As someone that has been living in Montreal for the past four years, which locale this article brings up numerous times, and biking about 350/365 days a year, I have to highlight a couple things to readers not from Montreal, or maybe even from the other side of the pond:
- Canada doesn’t know what yield signs are. Stop signs are on every corner, which are mostly handled as if they were yield signs, but maybe not even that. And this applies to all traffic, not just cyclists.
- Canada also doesn’t know what “right has the right of way” is. In some European countries if you come to an intersection without a light, a yield or stop sign, you simply give way to the vehicle approaching from the right.
- The individual boroughs have a lot of disconnect between each other on how traffic is handled. While they are trying to have a unified approach, there’s a lot of Balkanization.
- Much of the infra is dated. A remainder of design from the 60s and 70s that had patchwork applied to make it more livable. Things like green wave, automated traffic control or elevated pedestrian crossings and bicycle lanes at intersections are unheard of. Most lights are just set to a fixed cycle and have been operating like the same way for years.
- Intersections, especially with new developments, will have very sharp corners with narrow sidewalk, with greatly reduced visibility.
So that said, I rarely ever see the NYC courier style red-light skips between columns of cars by cyclists. Whenever I see that happen, it’s trashy people that seem to have little regard for anything, even their own lives.
I do see cyclists regularly doing Idaho stops at full stop intersections, but it’s the same as cars. I think this is a traffic design issue and not an issue with driving culture or cyclists in general. Stop signs are simply a bad design, and this has been elaborated on many times.I also see a lot of people ride on the e-bike bixi fleet recklessly. They provide far too much speed assist with minimal effort. The same goes with the electric motor bikes with a throttle that somehow pass as e-bike just because they also have the option for pedal assist. However this is not a problem with the vehicles themselves, but rather the lack of education and handling. In most western European nations children are taught how to bike in traffic and adhere to traffic rules at an early age. I can attest to this as I have grown up in Germany, and in grade 4 elementary we had to get our Fahrrad Führerschein, which was basically an attestation of having a course completed, for children.
Canada also doesn’t know what “right has the right of way” is. In some European countries if you come to an intersection without a light, a yield or stop sign, you simply give way to the vehicle approaching from the right.
Coming to Canada from Europe some decades ago, this was a shock. The “whoever stops first has the right of way” is so much worse, it’s not even funny. It requires much more attention, visibiltiy, consensus, to negotiate a simple intersection… It’s crazy. In practice, half the time people end up sitting and waiting for the other to go. The othe half, the more impatient people just go first.
Permission to exercise discretion does not mean cyclists will blindly roll through danger. No one is more aware of the risk of cycling in traffic than cyclists. Riding defensively is a necessary state of mind. A rule change will have no effect on that.
The rule change has nothing to do with making cyclists safer. It makes the cyclists’ current behaviour legal and predictable to everyone.
In Québec, cyclists always say that driving laws do not apply to them, they never stop at STOP sign or a red lights, are on the road or the sidewalk instead of the cycle lanes, etc.
They are very dangerous as they respect nothing especially in suburbia. In Montreal sometimes they stop!!! because it’s stop or die, mainly.
As a cyclist, I agree. Not all cyclists are like this, but a great majority are. These cyclists are a threat to everyone. Pedestrians, other cyclists, and themselves.
As a pedestrian, I’ve been hit several times on De Maisonneuve Ouest’s bike path while crossing at an intersection because a cyclist ran a red light into crossing pedesrians. As a cyclist, I’ve also had near miss collisions and have been pushed aside by assholes in leotards that want to go fast during rush hour when the path is full on Rachel. Absolute lack of consideration for others. The mentality needs to change.
As a Vancouverite, this is the state of things anyway. All stop signs are yield signs. All yield signs- actually there are no yield signs.
@otters_raft
Idaho stop!Drivers will criticize cyclists while drivers themselves rarely stop for a right turn on red and rarely make a full stop at a stop sign
Just look around in this thread and you will find driver talking as if all cyclist is bad.
A lot of them are. Just roll through stop signs and red lights see it alot. And I’m fine but if you get hit it’s on you.
A lot of driver did that as well, didn’t see such language pointed toward them.
I think the unfairness psychological factor is often underappreciated. People have a very strong aversion to unfairness and that’s a part of reality no less than the real safety differences between cars and bikes running a stop sign. If we’re to change the status quo, it needs to take that into account and make people feel things are fair. E.g. if stops signs are treated as yield signs on most of the back streets, maybe change them to yield signs. And/or make new signs that except some vehicles from full stop where really needed. And start enforcing the rules of the road instead of letting people make their own rules, which produces chaos, injury and death. If some rule turns out to be impractical, enforcing it would get people to vote for changing it.
E: The quantity of stop signs on small streets in TO is TOO DAMN HIGH!
There are different rules for transport truck drivers, and there are different rules for pedestrians. Treating people who decided to go to the store in their 2 ton portable living room, that’s 3ft off the ground, with four reclining seats, and separated completely from the outside world by a bubble, the exact same as the guy walking or on a 30 lb bike is fucking asinine.
That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m saying that any diffetrnce in treatment must be clear and well signed. Not based on personal judgment and interpretation of one signage or another. And I do think we have to be separated from vehicle traffic in physical ways. Fuck vehicular cycling (just coming off of NJB’s video) 😄
Problem is its a nuanced thing that only some folks have the sense to make a proper call. When there is no vehicle cross traffic at all. It kinda makes sense. I remember a guy though who would go through on reds for a very busy street in afternoon rush and it was quite annoying. I mean by the time the drivers get all pissed he is well away while me and the others stopped at the light are there as targets of it.
Nah, I didn’t get to be a 67 year old cyclist by doing dumb things in downtown rush hour traffic. In any case, starting from all those intersections when the light turned green was great training for the velodrome. I was a mediocre track cyclist, but my standing start was pretty good, due to getting out of the saddle and getting up to speed as fast as possible every single commute.
Congrats, your personal preferences for fitness are not valid arguments for policy changes.
I stopped reading anything from The Conversation a long time ago. Such and idiotic title doesn’t encourage me to change that. Playing Frogger on a bike isn’t a good way to survive.
Read the article before posting. If you can the bothered then don’t comment on what you presume the contents to be.
Furthermore, the efficiency of cycling depends on maintaining speed.
That’s some pretty specious logic. I would use less fuel if I didn’t foolishly waste it stopping at red lights too.
You’re gonna get a bike-splanation on that.
It terms of the energy that the human puts in, which is a pretty big factor in how people choose their modes of transportation
I think it is a little different given the physical demand of starting and stopping is on the person rather than on machinery. Adding say a dozen stops to what would have otherwise been relatively smooth speed on a bicycle will significantly increase the energy expended by the person cycling.
This right here. I stress fractured my ankle making hard stops over and over and over.
The point is that it’s the same for literally every mode of transportation. Including walking. In fact it is more energy expensive for cars, since the accelerate faster, accelerate to a faster speed, and weigh a lot more.
Saying that the energy is spent by the person instead of the machine might not be the best argument, since on rich countries people actually want to spend more energy from themselves, and less energy from their car.
There are many other reason why bikes should be treated differently. But energy efficiency is BS.
For example another commenter said how it physically hurts stopping so much on a bike. Which is actually a good argument. I don’t mind wearing out my car as I do wearing out my joints.
Yes it physically hurts them because it is them expending the energy and stressing their biological joints. Not a machine expending the energy and wearing out mechanical joints.
If someone wants to spend more energy on themselves instead of their car they can go for a joyride or something. I would bet that most people don’t want to spend extra energy on their commute just because.
It absolutely is not BS. All you’ve done is highlighted the fact that you evidently don’t cycle anywhere. If you did, you would immediately understand what they meant about coming to a full stop, vs a slow crawl.
Because heres the thing that’s different about a bicycle vs walk ing vs a car: bicycles stop balancing and tip over when they stop moving. There’s also an enormous amount of starting torque required for any wheeled vehicle starting from a full stop compared to a slow crawl, which is not the case for walking, and obviously cars (and ebikes) have a motor to get them through that torque so it is literally nothing to the driver.
A car that runs a red light can cause serious or even fatal injuries. A cyclist, on the other hand, is unlikely to cause the same degree of damage.
But they can cause damage. So this direction of logic is faulty. If they argued that there would be less accidents with cyclists going through stop intersections then I would ask to see the data to validate that, but “the crashes won’t be as bad” is ludicrous to ground this change on. And won’t be as bad for whom? It’s going to be bad for the cyclist certainly, but even if a fatal hit only creates a scratch on a car hood, does that mean it’s okay?
How is this faulty? The degree of damage is incredibly relevant. We don’t make everything that could ever cause damage illegal, because we have nothing left. Laws are a balancing act of pros and cons to society.
A car has far less visibility (they are inside a box with a few windows) will will do far more damage if they hit someone. A cyclist has dramatically better visibility (they have basically an unobstructed 180° view) and especially when going slow is very unlikely to cause significant damage (posing risk of significant harm only the the most frail and elderly).
If not requiring complete stops for cyclists leads to 1% more cyclists on the road (because their travel is easier) it almost certainly causes less harm overall due to how dangerous cars are and also their indirect health effects (both inactivity when driving and the pollution).
So no, the logic isn’t faulty at all and probably one of the most important arguments.
It’s a faulty argument because it only considers the damage caused by the bike hitting something, not the consequences of other vehicles with the right of way making emergency maneuvers to avoid smearing the idiot who ran the stop. This guy has been sitting on his tenured ass and smelling his own farts for too long.
Read the fucking article before posting.
With Idaho stop rules, a stop sign becomes a yield sign, meaning that cyclists are still required to slow down and make sure it’s safe before proceeding.
That’s a very good point. Maybe you should read a fucking comment before you reply it. At what point did you see me say anything about the actual details of the rule? That isn’t relevant to my comment. We were talking about the faulty argument regarding the consequences of when people inevtiably get it wrong. If you have anything pertinent to add on that point, please comment.
It’s literally the last paragraph quoted on OP post.
Cyclists must still yield to cars ahead of them at stop signs, as well as to pedestrians at all times, and may only enter the intersection when it is clear.
It would still be illegal for a cyclist to roll through a 4 way stop if it wasn’t their turn. My understanding is that they can only treat it as a yield if they have the right of way. Which makes sense.
Ideally cyclists would have their own dedicated infrastructure but until then we need to share the road.
