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Comment by mrb | Hacker News Reader

«make it a 4-way stop»

You may be unaware, but 4-way stop signs are very uncommon outside of the US. In fact, in the UK they have always been formally prohibited by the Department for Transport in 2002.

As a European driver, I discovered the existence of 4-way stop signs when I moved to the US, and I have always found them dangerous in a counter intuitive way: drivers are so used to 4-way stop intersections, that they may adopt the habit of (1) doing rolling stops and (2) assuming an intersection with a stop sign is almost always a 4-way stop. Both of these 2 habits are dangerous... At least that's my personal experience. I prefer the consistency of my home country where every stop is a 2-way stop, therefore I'm never surprised by non-stopping traffic at an intersection.

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> rolling stops

What's special about a 4-way stop here? And a rolling stop is good enough to prevent a high-speed collision anyway.

> assuming an intersection with a stop sign is almost always a 4-way stop

Around here there is a good mix and I don't think that happens.

> I prefer the consistency of my home country where every stop is a 2-way stop

Well I personally hate going through 2-way-stop intersections that are over 25mph.

A rolling stop is only good enough to prevent a 'high-speed collision' as judged by people wearing steel armor boxes.

If you don't drop to walking speed, it's not a rolling stop, it's flat-out running the stop sign.

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

I always found it hard to understand what's so difficult in actually stopping when the sign clearly says "stop". The wording hardly leaves any room for misinterpretation, doesn't it?

I'd guess some people want to keep a bit of the momentum going for fuel efficiency? Going from standstill to moving, with a big heavy metal box, requires more energy than simply accelerating an already existing momentum, even if it's just a small momentum.

But I'm with you: Stop means stop

Many stop signs are placed such that stopping for them prevents you from safely observing oncoming traffic. So after stopping at a stop sign you still need to slowly inch forward checking that the path is clear making the stopping portion of the exercise absolutely pointless.

Further my habit of actually stopping has gotten me rear ended and tossed into an intersection. Doing things unexpected can be very hazardous.

Yup, but you still are supposed to, you know, "STOP". :) And isn't it done on purpose? This way, you are not breaking the knees of pedestrians that are crossing the road & you are not sending bicyclists flying. Stop, slowly inch forward (no broken knees, no flying people), enter the road when safe. I'm always wary when walking across the road with a stop sign, precisely because people don't stop at the line.

It's a shame that following signs is unexpected. Somehow, it's not acceptable to run a red light because "no-one is around anyway", but it's fine to do rolling stops?

Cyclists are supposed to come to a full stop as well. They're easy to see stopped right at the corner.

This doesn't happen, at least from my limited experience in Beverly Hills.

I ride several blocks to work sometimes and I take local streets which all have 4 ways stop signs.

9 out of 10 cars yield and refuse to go. I get the pedestrian treatment.

There is at least one state (Idaho [1]) in the US where cyclists are legally allowed to treat a stop sign like a yield sign.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop

The problem of rolling stops is when people accidentally do that at a 2-way stop that they mistake as a 4-way stop. This greatly increases the chance of a collision.

The prevalence of rolling stops is much reduced in countries where all intersections are 2-way stops.

Yeah where I live (the outer sunset neighborhood of San Francisco) it feels like half the stops are 2-way and the other half are 4-way. As a cyclist this is dangerous for me, because if I go through an intersection where I am not stopped but cars are subject to the stop, they will stop, not see me, then start going. So consistency is key!

It happens the other way around too; I had a bicyclist roll through a 2-way where I had no stop and almost cause a collision. They yelled at me, probably thinking it was a 4-way.

It might be my imagination, but I seem to recall nearly all, if not all, 4-ways marked as such with a small rectangular placard below the stop sign in Virginia. I've seen them sometimes in California, but not even at the majority (not really any more common than the opposite sign "Cross traffic does not stop").

> It might be my imagination, but I seem to recall nearly all, if not all, 4-ways marked as such with a small rectangular placard below the stop sign in Virginia.

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.)

There's a 4-way give way junction here [1]. That's the closest you will get in the UK. It means give way to anything that is in the junction before you are, but the actual effect is for cyclists to frequently be aggressively hooted at and nearly run over by cars.

[1] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.2190575,0.1178374,105m/dat...

Interesting construction. This wouldn't be legal in Nordics, there can be no direction in give way signs indicated, and there can be no 4-way give way junctions.

To be honest, I was quite surprised that it even existed, and it may possibly not be legal in the UK either.

There is at least two of those four-way yields in Stockholm, and yes, it is of course absolutely insane. In a regular junction you already have to

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.

I think the UK has a lot of "mini roundabouts" where they just paint a circle on the road and mount roundabout signs. Traffic paths are similar to what they would be without the circle. Of course, the give-way rule is different: give-way to your left (easy), rather than give-way to those who arrived first (hard).

You give way to your right, not your left, on a mini-roundabout in the UK.

The "4-way" or "All-way" addition helps a little ( https://i.imgur.com/dzRksUw.jpg ), but I've made the mistake at least once or twice myself.

At least 4-way stops have the same basic rules throughout the US (cars go in order of arrival).

2-way stops do not:

Consider the case where the first car to arrive is turning left, but cannot do so due to traffic on the main road. Then a car arrives from the opposite direction going straight. Who is supposed to go first? In some states it's the car that reached the stop sign first, in others it's the car going straight.

When I did my driving lessons many many years ago (UK), I was told that the car turning left would have right of way, because they weren't crossing a carriage way.

Left is across traffic in the US. Different sides of the road.

That's the same as everywhere else, just on the other side.

You have to flip it so the car is turnin right: across the path of the second car. In Australia the first car would have to wait. You can’t turn in front of a car going straight.

Sorry change "left" to "across traffic" (i.e. right in UK, Japan &c. left in mainland Europe and Americas)

All this assumes drivers who know and follow rules. Where I live, I have to wait in a suicide lane to make a left, and sometimes drivers at the stop sign will try to steal the right of way to make their left first. And then there's the problem that it's accepted practice here to point your car and inch toward traffic as a way to request they give you an opening, despite the very significant risk involved in doing so.

> In some states it's the car that reached the stop sign first, in others it's the car going straight.

Do you have a cite/link about this? I've heard people say different things, but I've never seen evidence that the left-turning vehicle has legal right-of-way in any state.

This is evidence to the contrary, as you've said...

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...

I could not find a US state with that law, interestingly enough, despite being taught it in Driver's Ed. in Virginia, that doesn't appear to be the law on the books.

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))/...

That's crazy. I find myself frequently having to pause, look around, make sure, etc (and the pausing and looking around in itself is dangerous) so often because of the discrepancy. But as someone born and raised here I've never considered an alternative, and am shocked that the alternative is so simple!

The other thing about 4-way stop intersections in the US is that the right-of-way rules when two vehicles arrive at the intersection at the same time is not quite what one would expect. That is, the vehicle to the right has the right of way. If the intersection was controlled by a roundabout, then the vehicle to the left would have the right of way.

In the US right-of-way for a 4-way stop is order of arrival, with yield to your right if you arrived at the stop line at the same time as someone else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-way_stop#Operation

In general it works fairly well even in areas notorious for bad driving (although sometimes people steal a turn, I've never seen someone blow right through one, even late at night).

Roundabouts are different. It's a one-way street that goes in a counter-clockwise circle, so naturally you if you are joining (effectively taking a right turn onto it) you must yield to traffic already on the roadway (that would be traffic coming from your left) as you would when turning right onto any street. Once you are on it, you now have right of way.

4-way stops are more deterministic, whereas traffic can get "starved" trying to enter a roundabout. However, you always must stop at a 4-way (even if it's a rolling stop), whereas you can blast through a roundabout if there's no-one to yield to.

> In general [4-way stop] works fairly well

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.

They do exist in Germany.

Really? I've driven through much of Europe, and I've never seen a 4/all-way stop junction.

Edit: That came across as if I was simply trying to dispute your statement, but I am genuinely curious to see an example of this in Germany.

We have at least one in Sweden, https://goo.gl/maps/kYZpAcQnD3n, it also has the sign subtext "flervägsstopp" /"multi-road-stop".

I'm guessing they actually do exist almost everywhere, but they are rare, and only typical in very slow traffic areas such as residential block intersections (see google map in next post) where you can't motivate building a roundabout or adding lights. Anywhere else they would be replaced by either traffic lights or a roundabout.

Most importantly, you would avoid at almost any cost to cross two rural roads in a flat 4 way crossing. This is exactly where there is ample space to make a roundabout.

In the Netherlands, a 4 four stop would lead to an instant deadlock. I.e., if you reach a stop sign then all traffic on the road you approaching has priority.

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.

> In the Netherlands, a 4 four stop would lead to an instant deadlock. I.e., if you reach a stop sign then all traffic on the road you approaching has priority.

In a 4 way the same priority rules apply thatwould have applied if there were no stop signs. Obviously the signs have to make clear to everyone that it is a 4 way stop, so that you don't have 4 cars all thinkning they are in a 2 way stop. This is usually done with an additional sign under the STOP sign. After that it just works like any no-stop intersection, you yield to e.g. the car to the right (Sweden) or the first car to arrive (US) etc.

The issue is that you can get in a situation with a car on each road. One of the drivers then has to signal the car on his left that he gives up his right of way. This is the same across the EU.

That happens all the time. But the point is that it's no worse because of the stop signs. Even without 4 stop signs you can have 4 cars stopped. This isn't a "bad" situation or a deadlock, this is a very safe situation and just means cars will have to crawl out in the crossing while making eye contact and taking some kind of turn driving. Now, if this happens regularly then the junction is much too trafficed for being a planar 4 way - with or without stops. Should be a roundabout in this case. But 4 stopsigns does not make an automatic deadlock. You don't need a rule to decide who goes first in that situation.

The same can be seen in any intersection with red lights, as soon as the red lights don't work. You just crawl into the intersection, trying to take turns. It works.

The thing is, in the Netherlands, you could not use a stop sign for that, because a stop sign does not mean "stop and then crawl out into the intersection while maintaining eye contact with other drivers", it means "stop and give way to the road with the higher priority". A proper traffic code should always provide a consistent way to approach any given sign.

If there's no working traffic lights and no stop signs, a different set of rules come into play.

> The thing is, in the Netherlands, you could not use a stop sign for that, because a stop sign does not mean "stop and then crawl out into the intersection while maintaining eye contact with other drivers", it means "stop and give way to the road with the higher priority". A proper traffic code should always provide a consistent way to approach any given sign.

The normal solution (used e.g. in Sweden) is to simply add a supplemental sign saying "multi-way stop" under the stop sign. https://d3h4jqp4au0mzy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/201...

I was taught that the shape of the stop sign is octagon (and yield triangle) because you can recognize the shape from behind. The main road doesn't need to have the diamond priority sign. You know you have priority if the you see the octagon or triangular shape on adjoining roads.

Not sure I understand what you are saying here...

Imagine driving towards an intersection. There is no sign telling you if you have priority or not. There is a red car coming from the right. Then you notice that the red car has a stop sign in front of him (you recognize the shape). You infer that you are on the main road and you can ignore the right-hand rule.

Sorry, I understood what you meant, just not what the relevance was. What you are saying applies, and applies universally (regardless of whether there also exists multi-way-stops).

That there is no need for supplemental signs I guess.

Either you have a regular stop intersection, in which case there are octagonal stop signs on the roads that do not have priority. No supplemental signs needed. A driver stopping at the stop sign knows that when the intersection is clear he can drive. If it's a 4 way and he's turning left, he may have to yield to a driver on the opposite road, depending on the local laws (In a right hand yield priority the car turning left yields to the car in the opposite road).

Or it's a multi-way-stop (which is rare) in which case all roads have the supplemental sign. None of the roads have priority and all drivers can do to resolve deadlocks is be careful. All the supplemental sign does is inform drivers that OTHER drivers will also stop. It just removes the ambiguity we talked about above - where a driver at a stop sign might otherwise think he can't drive until the intersection is completely clear.

A stop sign means stop and give way to the cars on the main road, or if the other road has same priority, to the cars on your right. If there are no cars, you are free to enter the junction. A road with a yield sign and a road with a stop sign are of the same priority and right-hand rule applies. Unless you are in Croatia where people universally refuse to accept this simple rule and consider the stop sign as having lower priority "because that car has to stop".

It's the same situation when there are no signs. Then all roads have same priority and you give way to the vehicle on your right. If 4 vehicles come to the intersection at the same time then every vehicle has another vehicle on their right and it's a standstill. If I remember correctly in such situations drivers need to communicate and one vehicle should go first to resolve the situation.

I won't dispute it because of the general "If you've never seen a black swan, is that proof that none exists? (No)" fallacy, but speaking as a German, I cannot remember having seen one in Germany, ever. So even if one exists it's an exceedingly rare thing.

When I lived in the US I always found it unnecessary that everybody has to stop. In Germany we always have a "main" road and a "secondary" road, and those on the main road don't have to stop. That priority pattern is kept from major roads to tiny roads. Then there's the "right before left" rule when the roads are equal - creating a priority without signs and without "everybody has to stop" rule.

In the places where I see four-way stop, there is some constant but not heavy traffic during parts of the day, so if you had a primary / secondary road with only a two-way stop, the secondary road would not flow well. However, the traffic was not high enough to warrant a signal.

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.

Almost every such intersection in Germany was replaced with roundabouts, afaik. Perfect use case for them.

Australia is more similar to the US than Germany, but we don't have four way stops here; they case is provided for by roundabouts. Even still perhaps we have less because we rarely have pure grids.

I went to check on google maps, I suspect I misremembered and it was a 4 way priority loosing (downwards triangle), but the road markings are mostly worn out (but I think they are 4 dashed lines, not continuous), and Germany being Germany, I can't use google street view.

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.

I don't think so. The literal text from the StVo for the STOP sign (VZ 206) is

    Ge- oder Verbot

    1. Wer ein Fahrzeug führt, muss anhalten und Vorfahrt gewähren.

And that strongly implies that at least one of the other streets has the right of way. I've also never seen one.

This is the same in the Czech Republic and the behavior should be the same as if there are no stop signs (except that you have to stop). One of the drivers have to give way to the one on his left and after he goes through, it's all clear.

Never seen one and I suspect that it would be illegal. The rules that govern which sign can go where in Germany are very detailed. And they are broken all the time, so I'm really not disputing the existence of counterexamples.

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