A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

Isn't that how it should be ? I'm not in DK, but in LV traffic laws in such a situation they should ignore the blinker, the driver must wait and turn right only after everyone going straight e.g. those bicycles and also pedestrians crossing the road he's turning to; since the vehicle turning must yield to everyone else.

About your mitigation strategy: that would solve the problem but unfortunately the cyclist won't stop behind the car. The cyclist would turn left to overtake the stopped car. I don't like to do that because it puts me in the middle of the road or to the right of another car. It also requires some space to maneuver and a car could be arriving from behind me and close the gap.

Usually stopped cars don't hit cyclists (but watch out for doors). I look at the traffic light and refrain from overtaking the car (both on the left and on the right) if it's about to turn green.

Rule 73 of the Highway Code:

> Pay particular attention to long vehicles which need a lot of room to manoeuvre at corners. Be aware that drivers may not see you. They may have to move over to the right before turning left. Wait until they have completed the manoeuvre because the rear wheels come very close to the kerb while turning. Do not be tempted to ride in the space between them and the kerb.

That said, demanding a license for cyclists I agree is completely unreasonable.

As a regular cyclist, I would say that requiring a license from cyclists would certainly do something to fix this: make cyclists more aware of it.

Over here, about 2/3 of collisions between motor vehicle and bicycle are fault of the motor vehicle driver. But that leaves 1/3 where cyclist errors or breaches of traffic code are reason, which is also significant.

And then there are actually quite many cyclist accidents that do not involve a motor vehicle.

The difficulty in riding a bike in a city doesn't come from having to control the vehicle. Danger doesn't come from the ability to maim someone with a bike. It comes from hugely complex set of rules, dynamic nature of traffic, high speed high pressure decision making necessary, sensory overload and fatigue, self control, competition on the road etc.

That's what you need to take into account to navigate safely.

Of course! In a world where there were only cyclists there would still need to be a set of rules that all cyclists are required to follow. Those might include how to behave at intersections, how and when you should overtake other cyclists, and so on. To be allowed to cycle, each cyclist should have demonstrated that they understand and follow these rules by taking some kind of test.

> In a general case though, requiring cyclists to have a licence would reduce the number of cyclists, probably significantly. This would correspondingly increase the number of motorists.

I don't think so. I expect the government to continue to penalize use of motor vehicles in cities such as London. The bicycle will remain the cheaper mode of transport.

Most cyclists are licensed drivers, and a test for cycling licensing would, at worst, probably be no more difficult than that for driving. The impact on the number of cyclists would be minimal.

A bicycle can injure or kill a pedestrian or cause a motor vehicle accident. What is the justification for licensing motor vehicle driving but not bicycling when done on public roads? I cannot think of anyone who fails a motor vehicle licensing test that I consider competent to not cause others harm while operating a bicycle on public roads. I would much rather suffer the 'dangers' of increased carpooling or public transit use.

No. Why do you think this is relevant? It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the rest of your argument.

As for how good an idea it is to have a licensing system for people travelling without lethal weapons, papers please! It's a fantastic idea. You probably also should have a chip in you so the government can track you and see if you've travelled to a part of town you don't have a licence to be in. After all, we've got to cut down on crime.

This is a very important difference and that’s the main reason I yearn for self-driving cars. Current vehicles are horrible to see where you are driving and drivers are in denial about it. At least, when you have engineers trying to represent a scene, they gut reaction is “No way I am dealing with such a slim view, I”m putting the camera where it can see what’s happening.”

It might just as well be some other obstacle: slow moving vehicle, car stuck on the road, end of a traffic jam. People really really need to learn that you need to be able to come to a dead stop within the distance that you can see.

I suppose it depends on the country, but usually roads mandate minimum speeds (tipically half the max speed) in order to avoid issues like this. Anything lower than the minimum speed should be treated like a static obstacle, so maximum speed should always take into account unexpected hazards.

Given that cyclists cannot tipically maintain the minimum speed required in any country road, they cannot share the road with faster vehicles. It's either curbs or segregated roads. Anything else is plain craziness.

This definitely varies based on where in the US you are. In California almost no one comes to a complete stop. (That's probably why rolling through a stop sign is called a "California Roll"). But in many other parts of the country people do, even if there are no cars around.

And traffic circles? Fuck that's super confusing! Americans would rather get into accidents at a four way stop than be confused in a traffic circle. That's why traffic circles are so uncommon.

From TFA there already is a give-way sign - drivers who should be yielding think they have good visibility, blast through the intersection at full speed, and kill somebody. The article suggests this could be due to the CBRD phenomenon.

Even if people treated the stop sign as a rolling stop sign, slowing down seems like it would help, at least WRT drivers not seeing people due to CBRD.

Of course there are fancier (more expensive) engineering solutions too.

In the western U.S. (and eastern suburbs) the 4-way stops are largely vestigial; I'd agree that most of them could go away without any loss of safety. Many of the newer neighborhoods are signed that way anyway, though - I just drove through one this morning with 2-way yields.

My driver's ed class was IIRC 36 hours of instruction and 12 hours in the car, with a professional driving teacher. It had an hour long examination putting me through as many challenging situations as possible at the end.

[1] https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/other_topics/fhwasa...

This is the key problem. Whether an intersection is a 4-way or 2-way stop sign changes the right-of-way of any person with a stop sign. (If it's 2-way, I must yield, but if it's 4-way and I've reached the intersection first, I have the right-of-way.) It is crazy that in the US, a person at a stop sign can't distinguish these two situations for certainly without looking to see if the other direction has a stop sign.

(Similar complaints can be made about flashing-red and flashing-yellow intersections.)

I think we can agree that 4mph is not high speed.

There are no rules for solving this conflict. Because you cannot have two roads that have priority over each other.

The Dutch equivalent of a 4 way stop is a raised intersection. Basically an intersection that is one big speed bump. Traffic is forced to slow down but otherwise normal priority rules apply.

This makes sense to me, and I don't see how other systems would be anything but worse. A signal would have a short cycle and only delay people during large parts of the day, a two-way stop would cause problems in one direction, it seems excessive to tear out a bunch of road to put concrete in, etc.

It is of course very natural that the roads in the US are built to completely different standards than Germany, given how incredibly different the layout of US cities are from German ones, broadly speaking.

St Peter Strasse / Von der Tann Strasse in Rorhbach in Heidelberg.

Sorry for causing a stir with my bad memory, I remembered that from my French point of view that would cause a deadlock.

Utah law only talks about who must yield. I use to believe that a person going strait had the right of way. Some of the confusion may come from the wording from different ways of entering the roadway. In Utah it says the following.

41-6a-903 Yield right-of-way -- Vehicle turning left -- Entering or crossing highway other than from another roadway -- Merging lanes. (1) The operator of a vehicle: (a) intending to turn to the left shall yield the right-of-way to any vehicle approaching from the opposite direction which is so close to the turning vehicle as to constitute an immediate hazard;

This doesn't actually apply to a stop sign because it says "other than a roadway". It also talks about "opposite direction" and not cross traffic.

The other part of the law that actually seems to apply is the following.

41-6a-902 Right-of-way -- Stop or yield signals -- Yield -- Collisions at intersections or junctions of roadways -- Evidence. (b) After having stopped at a stop sign, the operator of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to any vehicle in the intersection or approaching on another roadway so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard.

https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title41/Chapter6A/C41-6a-P9_180001...

Most states' language is similar to California's 21801 which is must yield to vehicles "approaching frome the opposite direction which are close enough to constitute a hazard"

Not USA, but Ontario, CA actually does have this rule in 136.2[1]

Michigan found a 3rd option: If there are two cars going straight from one direction and one car waiting to turn left from the opposite, then it goes Straight, Left, Straight. This is regardless of the order that they arrive[2]

[edit]

I also find it absurd that this situation is not covered in every single States' driver's manual. After googling this, it's clearly contentious, and has been for years. If there ever was a situation that needed clarification it's this one.

I think it was New York's manual that had the section and had a list of questions "you should be able to answer" before proceeding (without answers provided). One of the questions was this situation, but I could not figure out the answer from reading the chapter!

1: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90h08#BK230

2: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(did15hikprdseomawdqif0jc))/...

1) Yield to traffic inside the junction,

2) Yield to traffic approaching from your right.

In a four-way yield junction, you have to

1) Yield to traffic inside the junction,

2) Yield to traffic approaching from your right,

3) ??????? to traffic approaching from the left.

It breeds confusion and has no advantage over a regular intersection. Unless, of course, you count confusion as an advantage. Which you do if you drive the vehicle with the largest inertia around.

If you're not considering intersection throughput, then that may be true, but 4-way stops are one of the worst forms of intersection control when there's even a moderate amount of traffic.

> Roundabouts are different.

Of course, but what I was implying when I made my post is that a 4-way stop sign controlled intersection right-of-way rule is unusual compared to most traffic situations where one has to yield the right of way. At a yield sign, one typically yields to traffic coming from the driver's left. When entering a highway, one yields to traffic on their left. When making a right turn on red, one yields to traffic on their left after coming to a full stop.

Only when coming to a 4-way stop are the right-of-way rules reversed it seems.

> whereas traffic can get "starved" trying to enter a roundabout.

One thing that's done in the UK is to add traffic lights at the entrances to busy roundabouts. When traffic gets heavy, the activate the traffic lights to regulate traffic flow to prevent the starvation scenario that you mention. To me, that's the best of both worlds where one isn't legally required to stop even when there's no traffic approaching.

Except on the “compact real estate” axis. A plain intersection is always going to be smaller.

Figuring out who goes next is not remotely as difficult as you have made it out to be. Where I used to live, I would go through two four-way stops twice each day during peak traffic. There are generally two scenarios when you approach the intersection. In light traffic, you get to the intersection and nobody else is waiting to cross, or it is obvious who got there first. In moderate traffic, you will queue up behind one or possibly two cars. Once you get to the front of the queue, you wait for the cars on your left and right that are already at the front of the queue, and then you go. This is simple because each direction of traffic alternates, and it is reasonably fast because the queues are very short.

The real worst case scenario is that during light traffic four cars approach simultaneously, but not only is this extremely rare, but it is not really even a problem when it happens.

In my personal experience I have had far, far more problems in US cities on two-way stops when I am bicycling and a driver incorrectly yields when they have right of way.

I suspect that most Americans feel the same way about roundabouts that, say, Germans feel about 4-way stops. But please remember that roundabouts require more land and much more capital investment. The tradeoffs in the US are different.

I once had a bicyclist coming down a curvy mountain road. There was something about their riding that seemed uncomfortable, so I started slowing down. The biker then wiped out and crossed over the yellow line, stopping a few feet from my truck. If I hadn't been proactively scanning and thinking about everything that could go wrong they probably wouldn't have been able to get up, and say "thanks for not running me over."

I don't write this to judge you, or brag about myself. I've made plenty of mistakes myself. This is more a general lesson for people: synthesize all inputs received while driving and take proactive steps to mitigate potential risks.

While I don't discount that there may be freak scenarios, as a motorcyclist I agree. If I don't see a car, a pedestrian, a bird, a kangaroo, a log on the road, I go to hospital. It's as much my responsibility to ensure my own safety as anyone else's.

Manufacturers are more likely to be liable if you roll your car and the roof caves in, killing you.

Manufacturers are less likely to be found liable if you couldn't see through your A-pillar and hit a cyclist, as apparently proven by the article.

It's very hard to point the finger at the driver for their roof caving in, there's nothing the driver can do to stop that from happening. But there's plenty a driver could do to avoid trouble from blindspots.

All the solutions like, 'let's find a way to force cars to slow down' are just going to make auto drivers have even more resentment toward cyclists.