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Comment by birken | Hacker News Reader

As somebody who has biked thousands of miles in SF, this is a fun thing to argue about but it doesn't make any difference on the streets. Almost every biker already does this, and as long as the police (correctly) don't enforce the actual law, whether or not it is legal really makes little difference.

If you are a driver you shouldn't notice the difference anyways. If you get to the stop sign first, then the biker has to stop. If they don't, they are breaking the law. If they get there first, they get to go, but by not stopping they'll get out of your way sooner.

Also major Kudos to The Wigg Party [1] who came up with the idea for the creative and wildly effective "Stop In" protest. When you compare that protest to the moronic monthly takeover of the streets by Critical Mass it is like night and day.

1: http://wiggparty.org/

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I live on the wiggle. The problem in most cases is not the interaction with cars. It's the interaction with pedestrians.

When bikes approach intersections at speed, it's pretty easy to spot the vehicles at or approaching it. They have bulk and presence. But to clear pedestrians you've also got to check 3 or 4 corners. Sometimes those corners are even occluded by parked cars as you approach.

So what happens time and time again is bikes don't notice pedestrians entering the crosswalk until it's too late to stop at the speed they're going. So they end up veering around the often very surprised people who did not expect a bike to blow right past them from out of nowhere. This is a rather disconcerting experience, and it leads to a HUGE number of complaints.

Note, I am a big supporter of proper bike infrastructure, think it's worth removing parking spots for it, think it's worth installing traffic lights for bikes, separated elevated bike lines, and all that.

But I'll say this: San Francisco is not Idaho. We have so much more density. The busiest bike/pedestrian intersection in Idaho can't hold a candle to the wiggle. Rolling through stop signs at even moderate speeds is not super compatible with heavy pedestrian traffic.

Bike density is way higher in Amsterdam, yet it works well. Then again, in Amsterdam all bikes have brakes and people go at a slower speed.

That is because Amsterdam has vastly better bike infrastructure.

"Cyclists rule in Amsterdam and great pains have been taken to accommodate them: the city is equipped with an elaborate network of cycle-paths and lanes, so safe and comfortable that even toddlers and elderly people use bikes as the easiest mode of transport."

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicy...

In this context, that statement is wrong. Cycle paths mostly keep cyclists safe from cars. They don't do much for pedestrians.

Worse, it seems that in recently years the city of Amsterdam is set on creating cycle paths in just about all streets but can't be bothered to engineer them properly. So the whole thing becomes a bigger and bigger mess.

How do you mean? I've been pretty satisfied with the cycle lanes. The fact the construction closes key roads for long periods of times is frustrating, are you referring to that?

(Taking terminology from opentreetmap), a cycle lane is part of the main road separated from it using paint, a cycle path is separated physically using a curb, parked cars, etc.

I have no problem with cycle lanes, I do have problems with cycle paths. To give a few examples:

Many zebra crossing have traffic lights that only apply to cars. Big mess.

Many cycle paths now have traffic lights placed such that cyclists waiting for a red light block cross traffic (bikes and pedestrians)

On many intersections, taking a left turn with a bike now takes waiting for the traffic light twice.

There are now many cycle paths with bikes on the wrong side of the road. Certainly on roundabouts that's an accident waiting to happen.

In many cases pedestrians overflow from side walks into the cycle path. It used to be that there was nice layer of parked cars preventing that.

Cars taking a right turn are a bigger risk.

A good thing is that parked cars taking off don't hit bikes. But that seems to be it.

Can you provide any actual examples of streets where the paths/lanes have been recently created or updated where its worse than before in the way of any of the examples you provided? Obviously there are issues, but I'm not familiar with the situation actually worsening anywhere, and some of the problems you mentioned are tradeoffs that mitigate other problems. (for example, yes sometimes pedestrians flow onto the bicycle lane, but I'd rather see risk between cyclists and pedestrians than cyclists and cars, parking separated cycling does create one issue but mitigates a bigger one).

On the whole it feels it's very sensibly done and some issues you mentioned I'm not familiar with at all (like crossings having only lights that apply to cars, unless they're super short crossings in relatively quiet streets where lights make no sense. Cyclists blocking traffic is something that happens less and less, too, little islands have been created for the front row, lines for the back row. On the contrary the new designs have improved this point over the past. Of course it's not perfect but specifically I'm not sure what proposals you have that'd be better).

Anyway specific streets/corners as examples would be helpful!

Take Raadhuisstraat, etc. from the palace to Mercatorplein and back and you should pass just about all misfeatures except for the roundabout.

Another nice example of poor design is the intersection Aletta Jacobslaan / Johan Huizinglaan

I don't follow, Raadhuisstraat is known for having no parking separated cycle paths/lanes, which you seem to view as the source of various problem like pedestrians overflowing on the cycle lane (as I understand it). For me the Raadhuisstraat is an example of poor cycling infrastructure because nothing is being done and mix cyclists with motorised vehicles, rather than the badly engineered new lanes that mix cyclists with pedestrians that you talked about. I don't know the rest from memory but I'll try to cycle it sometime soon, I've got a buddy who lives near Mercator.

I agree the corner on Aletta and Johan could be better but it's not terrible if you ask me. For Dutch standards you don't get much bigger intersections and it's relatively well done. I guess a roundabout might be better (like Vlaardingenlaan / Overschiestraat, statistics show they do really well. I'm curious what you suggest to do to improve it?

You mean suicide brakes? count me out!

No. Only racing bikes have those, occasionally. In Amsterdam 99% of people ride a normal bike, not a racing bike. This is the essential difference between the bike cultures. Car drivers in the netherlands also do not like like bike racers, but only a small fraction of cyclists are racers.

I though a lot of dutch bikes had the pedal backwards to Brake?

It's common, and I like them a lot.

Not when you are used to proper brakes it doesn't as you unconsciously move the peddles to the best position to start peddling after coasting.

They are in all aspects proper brakes, in practice better in many ways than rim brakes.

They do take some getting used to, but then so does everything else about bicycling.

"Coaster brake" is probably the more common term for this setup. It makes for a more complicated rear hub, but works better than calipers in rain and snow and gunk.

They're highly reliable and rarely wear out - no cables, no pads, and as you mentioned, no issues with water/mud which is a real concern in the NL.

The only thing you're sacrificing is stopping power - but it fits the riding style over there perfectly. Its flat, and nobody is in that big of a hurry.

No you just buy a bike with proper V brakes and alloy wheels - will stop you dead in a torrential downpour our just go for disk brakes if your doing off road.

They do (but this is different from a suicide break). I'd say most people use the pedal for breaking, the exception are mostly people who are a bit older and benefit a lot from gears, and somewhat wealthier people (as the pedal break bikes are usually a bit cheaper and often second hand), but even then I'd say I still see most people wearing suits who cycle, cycle on pedal break bikes.

Its even worse in London where cyclists undertake stopped traffic at speed - and never stop to think that pedestrains might be crossing.

And thats not counting the fixed wheel bikers who jump traffic lights putting them selves out of sync with the traffic light patterns and on a collision course for pedestrians.

And thats not counting the fixie riders that ride at 20mph plus though pedestrians at peak rush hour.

I'm an American (San Francisco) visiting Saigon right now for work. The traffic is insane and the air quality here is horrid (even indoors!). I've been avid cyclist my entire life and motorcyclist for the past 10 years. I use either one in SF almost every day of the week.

Everyone here rides scooters and motorcycles. There is almost zero 'law' when it comes to moving around (walking, biking, car or moto). People drive on the sidewalks, wrong way, don't stop, 2 people a baby and a lawn mower, etc. The amazing thing is that while I'm sure there are a lot of accidents (although I have yet to see one personally), in general things _just seem to work_.

I've rented a moto here and experienced the flow first hand both by myself and with locals. I actually feel much safer on two wheels than while playing frogger trying to cross a street on foot.

I also felt safer here on a moto than I do in SF, simply because the culture here is to accept the insanity and not fight it. In SF the 'us' vs. 'them' argument has gotten so out of control that I feel like many people in cars literally have put a target on my back. I get none of that attitude here in Saigon and it is refreshing.

So if SF wants to let cyclists yield at stop signs because it is actually safer for the cyclist, then let them do it. If you hit the cyclist with your car because they did something stupid, you aren't going to get hurt and you won't be liable (just like before this rule). Many other places in the world have already figured this out and are working just fine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

Interesting numbers. Vietnam is pretty high up there for deaths / 100k people. I'd attribute that more to the lack of proper safety equipment. Almost everyone wears helmets (required), but they are a joke in terms of quality and nobody wears any sort of armor cause it is too hot. Many people also ride two up which is the max allowed (3 with a baby). The speeds here are also just not that fast because of the traffic and quality of the scooters. Top speed is maybe 30mph.

In San Francisco, I strictly follow ATGATT and have had zero accidents, but a million close calls.

Not to turn this into that discussion again, but helmet do not substantially improve safety while they do significantly reduce acceptance of bikes as a mass transport mode.

The previous post was talking about motorcycles.

Was it? I took it to mean bicycles and light scooters which don't drive much faster than bicycles and share lanes with them; drivers of faster scooters generally do wear helmets, in my experience.

Well if we are talking about motorcycles, then of course, and my previous post doesn't apply.

I think the number of deaths in Vietnam is significantly higher than reported.

On a two week trip, I saw one fatality, two serious injuries and two minor injuries. This wasn't unusual, most tourists seemed to have seen at least a serious injury within a couple of weeks.

This seemed far more than 10× worse than the UK, where I lived for decades and saw less than one accident (even minor) per year, and where the police take a lot longer to clear things up (they do more investigation).

Saigon is attached to the rest of Vietnam, which is used to slow-moving two-wheel traffic chaos. SF is attached to the rest of the US, which is used to fast-moving four-wheel traffic. When you're making traffic laws, you have to take into account how visitors will commonly behave. Not necessarily limit yourself to their behaviours, but it's important to keep that demographic in mind.

You have a very good point. That said, it isn't the 'SF stop' law they are trying to pass right now. ;-)

Also, I'm a visitor in Vietnam and I'm doing just fine. It goes both ways.

You're really putting your finger on something here which is the American attitude and sense of entitlement that infects both sides.

I experienced what you are describing when I moved to London for the last 3 years. Congestion in London is really bad, not just cars, but public transport and pedestrian traffic as well. The city has worked really hard to optimize everything for the massive movement of people. Vans and motorbikes sometimes go onto the pavement (ie. british for sidewalk), and sometimes pedestrians overflow into the road. Buses often go into the oncoming lane to get around other buses with the full expectation that oncoming traffic will make room for them. All of this happens with a fraction of the road rage that you experience on much less congested US streets. Part of it seems to just be an unspoken moral duty and perhaps even comradery of everyone doing there part to help everyone else get where they're going.

That's not to say that it's all rainbows and unicorns in other countries—tube/rail commuting in London can be pretty traumatic, and if there's a strike or mechanical problems the knock-on effect through the system can be dramatic given how stretched it already is—but San Francisco transportion is drastically unoptimized (eg. BART 4-trains/hour per line vs Victoria Line 33-trains/hour) and it's not going to get better by quibbling over rolling stops and warring between drivers and cyclists. There was a time when the American people had the sense of duty and self-sacrifice to get on with massive transportation infrastructure projects like the Interstate Highway System (however misguided it may have been in hindsight), but now it's all about entitlement and NIMBYism and fighting over the crumbs from a decrepit and inadequate system.

I learnt to drive in London this summer.

Half an hour into the first lesson, the instructor asked me if I cycled regularly in London (yes). He'd noticed that I was yielding to oncoming vehicles some distance away, and said new road users often took several hours of lessons to get the hang of this.

It's possible to fail a driving test if you fail to yield to an approaching vehicle, which includes not moving slightly to the left to let an oncoming bus use part of your lane, and includes a bicycle if they have "right of way".

That is an utterly unscientific anecdotal argument on an important safety issue. Vietnam has over double the traffic-related fatality rate as the United States.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

This difference can be due to driving motorbikes, Vietnam has few cars. According to http://www.iii.org/issue-update/motorcycle-crashes in 2013, motorcyclists were about 26 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a crash per vehicle mile traveled and five times more likely to be injured.

If you aren't liable as the driver, and the biker is, how does it work if you car is damaged due to them not having auto insurance?

One of the (few) nice things about insurance is that when you are in an auto accident typically the insurance companies battle it out on your behalf rather than you have to sue somebody for damages directly.

As somebody who encounters a dozen cyclists every day, it DOES matter and the "do whatever we want" behavior of many, many, many, many, cyclists is a big problem.

Some of the stop signs on my path are 5-way, which are already screwed up enough without having to guess which random direction a cyclist will coast from (usually endangering pedestrians and cars alike).

When I am trying to turn right at a stop sign, a disturbing number of times a cyclist will approach from somewhere and decide to coast around the corner while I am turning too. Then I have to worry about seeing him when he should have STOPPED.

I also see cyclists turn from pretty much anywhere they want. They don't use hand signals, they don't switch to the driving lane, they just randomly hang a left in front of you while you're approaching a stop.

Cyclists expect to share the road, they need to obey the rules. It really can't be any simpler than that.

Why does this make any more sense for bikes than for cars? This seems to be an argument for why the current rules for stop signs are wrong because there is an "obvious" set of cases where someone shouldn't have to stop.

Isn't the problem when the two parties disagree about who got to the intersection first?

There are many differences. This is in the "beating a dead horse" category of argument because the difference between driving up to an intersection and biking up to one is so intuitively different if you've done both of them. But here are some reasons off the top of my head of why it is safer to yield through a stop sign on a bike vs a car:

1) On a bike you are much more towards the middle of the intersection so there is more space between you and people potentially entering the intersection from the sides, so you have more reaction time to deal with them

2) Your cross section is really tiny and entirely in front of you so there is no risk of hitting something you don't see

3) You have a much better field of view because you aren't obstructed by your car interior

4) You can use your sense of hearing to listen for cars/ pedestrians / other dangers

5) You are going much more slowly

Don't forget the cost of momentum. On a bike stopping and starting is a huge tax on you where as in a car it's just moving your foot from break to gas.

Except that there is also the cost to the environment. Conserving momentum in a car means using less gas.

That's not an 'except' kind of argument, more 'as a second order effect, there is also...'.

Tell that to the cities that don't sync their traffic lights. It doesn't matter whether I'm driving or cycling, that always pisses me off.

Bikes are also more nimble, so you're a lot less likely to run into someone else by accident, and if you do, you're likely to only hurt yourself (running into a pedestrian is different, but you're not going to encounter a pedestrian in the middle of an interesection; cross walk, sure, but the danger there is the same whether you stop or yield).

Meanwhile in a car, if you hit someone, you're driving a big multi-ton metal vehicle and you're going to injure or kill anything you hit.

And don't forget that a bike is least stable when starting and stopping, especially for unskilled riders. Having to come to a complete stop at every intersection can be more dangerous, not less, especially if there are cars approaching behind the cyclist: drivers are likely to roll through the stop sign themselves and pass the cyclist right as he is starting again.

Police where I am don't enforce full stop for cars either.

The consequences of two "yield" parties disagreeing about who got to the intersection first are a lot less severe when you're dealing with vehicles that weigh less than their operators. We already have laws that vary according to size and weight: trucks are not allowed on certain roads and highway lanes.

4-way stop intersections are extremely puzzling to me. We don't have them in most of Europe (I suspect all of Europe, but I can't speak for everywhere). STOP/Yield signs always come paired with right-of-way signs, so much so that having a stop/yield or right-of-way sign on just one street of an intersection automatically means the crossing street effectively has the other sign on it, even if it is missing. I think this is because they used to be stolen from time to time and sold for scrap metal. In the case of an intersection with no signs, the person on the right has the right of way, and the person going straight has the right of way respective to the one making a left turn. For T-sections, the person on the main road always has the right of way. For more complicated 5- or 6-way intersections, they put signs, traffic lights or roundabouts.

I suspect that stop signs serve an additional purpose, of calming traffic in neighborhoods. Long stretches where car drivers don't expect to slow down, will increase overall speeds. This is already evident on long neighborhood streets that don't have stop signs, and where they are now installing speed bumps at the request of residents.

Perhaps not a planned benefit, but the inconvenience of stop signs also funnels car traffic onto the larger trunk roads, leaving the side streets for cyclists -- a cheap and cheerful way of separating car and bike traffic.

On the other hand, I suspect that stop signs are also just a cheap traffic control device that works with minimal case-by-case design, especially in neighborhoods with narrow streets. Alternatives, such as roundabouts, tend to involve complete re-design of an area with at least a 50 yard radius, for instance eliminating visual obstacles and parked cars.

Moving to the US from Europe one of the most striking differences I noticed was the near complete absence of yield signs. Where I come from (Italy) yield signs are way more common than stop signs at intersections (unless visibility is very poor). Also, traffic lights seem comparatively overused the US, even at low-traffic intersections. I always wondered why. Yield signs would be a cheap and convenient alternative to stop signs and traffic lights at low-traffic intersections with good visibility.

Take the UK rules for stop signs as an example:

"In the UK, stop signs may be placed only at sites with severely restricted visibility, and each must be individually approved by the Secretary of State for Transport."

They are rare, I can only think of one in the county my parents live in. (No doubt there are a few more, but on all the routes we often used when I was a child, there was only one.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#United_Kingdom

That sounds excessive. Has there been a political movement against stop signs in the UK?

Thankfully there has been a movement to reduce the number of road signs in general - see the 'Reducing Sign Clutter' [1] advice released the the DfT in 2013.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

It's to ensure that they're only used where visibility is unexpectedly poor; not just where some unqualified local road planner thinks people should stop.

The one near my mum's house is on a junction where the 500+ year old building on the corner is very close to the road (which you can see as you approach), and where the building bulges out round the corner (which you can't see — roll through the junction from that direction and you don't have time to see if it's clear).

Illegal stop signs abound in the US. Stop signs should only be placed if they meet a Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) warrant. One or more of the following conditions must exist: (1) intersection of a less important road with a main road where application of the regular right-of-way rule is hazardous; (2) street entering a through highway or street; (3) unsignalized intersection in a signalized area; or (4) other intersections where a combination of high speed (directly related to sight distance), restricted view and serious accident record indicates a need for control by the stop sign.

Here in Massachusetts, it used to be the case that stop signs had to be individually approved by the state. At some point, the towns were allowed to make the determination—and they frequently put them up as illegal traffic calming devices because that is what's the locals want (and most our towns have direct democracy).

This is definitely true. When I'm cycling in to work, for a 2-mile stretch I have a choice of two roads: one is a major thoroughfare with lots of stop lights and a lot of traffic, and I personally find it extremely irritating to ride on. My other option is a parallel road which has very few lights but a large number of stop signs, and has significantly less traffic even though in theory it could carry almost as many cars. The cars would rather drive where the traffic lights may allow them to continue going for long periods (the light timings are actually pretty decent), but cyclists definitely prefer the road with the stop signs.

I enforced rules would still play a part in accident litigation. If a bike blew through a stop sign, he might me more liable compared to if he was allowed to simply yield. No cop will ticket it but a lawyer would include that in court.

blowing a yield sign, into a collision, is as illegal as blowing a stop sign.

Part of the article addresses that other cities are looking to San Francisco to set a precedent before adopting similar laws. It might be defacto legal here, but other cities need a law on the books to get the same privilege.

It make a huge difference whether or not it's legal. Drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians need to be able to make reasonable assumptions about other vehicles on the road. Whether cyclists should be required to stop at stop signs or not is debatable, but I'm not ok with the police deciding which laws they want to enforce. Enforcing the actual law is the whole point of their job.

This whole debate has become toxic.

Lets' think about the record of your police in selective enforcement of traffic laws for minorities. If the norm is non-enforcement, and if I was black, I'd probably prefer it if the law was 'tidied up' in this regard.

I got fined $150 for breezing through a stop sign on a bike once and since then I've been stopping at every single goddamn one. So if they're changing the law it makes me happy.

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