Those "momentum hacks" like the Idaho stop have been shown to improve cyclist safety.
The stuff that kills people should have to do the full stop.
Yet cars kill about 20 people a year in SF, and people just shrug and ignore it.
Slippery slope...
14 pedestrians were killed in SF traffic accidents last year, all by cars. 0 by bikes. Bikers in SF aren't cited for rolling stops so we are already living in the Idaho stop world. It is very safe. [1]
Bikers should indeed be very observant when approaching crosswalks and intersections. And they usually are, because if nothing else, their lives depend on it.
Also what sucks was the fact that bunch of people in front of me just flew through the stop sign without even slowing down, and then me, who slows down at every stop to almost full stop (just short of tilting the bike and putting leg on the ground) was stopped by police car behind me.
How many bike riders got themselves killed in intersections?
Bikers should indeed be very observant when approaching crosswalks and intersections. And they usually are, because if nothing else, their lives depend on it.
And yet, I keep on running into situations where I think to myself, "How in the hell do you think you can survive while doing that!?" Here's the thing. The level of lack-of-foresight that makes someone a cringey inconsiderate nuisance in a car is about the same lack-of-foresight that makes someone a likely organ donor on a bike.
Tongue in cheek tinfoil hat stuff: Maybe the bike trend is just a machination of aging oligarchs who want to ensure transplant organ supplies? Biking is popular in exactly the places where the population is healthier (better donors) and left leaning (more likely to donate.)
1 cyclist was killed in a SOMA intersection by a DUI operator through no fault of her own with legal right-of-way.
Not true IME, but it may be a cultural difference. Stop signs are relatively uncommon in Finland. I can only recall one intersection with a stop sign in my previous home town of about 20k people. I have not found any stop signs yet in my new place with 140k people.
Most intersections have yield signs or lights; only the smallest of streets have no signs whatsoever.
Traffic works pretty well and I don't really see people dangerously blowing through intersections. Cyclists and pedestrians in particular can be too careful as they often stop and wait for a car to go by even though the car is supposed to yield.
I'm all for letting them roll through stop signs and red lights as long as they pay attention and respect the yield rules.
The problem I have with this is that I have no idea whether any given intersection in town is going to have signs or not. I can make educated guesses that work well most of the time, but I'd prefer to make fewer guesses in traffic. If you don't have a yield sign, you have to look out for the gray backside of a yield sign for the road on the right. It may or may not be there. Depending on angle, position, background, weather, dirt, snow, ..., it can be hard to spot.
I don't know how much people pay attention. I get the impression that locals simply memorize each intersection. This can lead to some interesting scenes when the signs and rules are changed.
When you're in a new place, well, you're stuck scanning for the backsides of yield signs again. I find it rather stressful; it'd be nicer to be able to fully focus on the traffic and lanes & route ahead.
Here's one example. The street on the right looks smaller than the road ahead, so you can make the educated guess that they have to yield. And indeed they do -- you find the triangle sign on the lamp post just beyond the crosswalk.
https://www.google.com/maps/@62.2487495,25.7497856,3a,75y,13...
Another small street on the right. You can, again, guess that they have the yield sign, but you cannot see it until you're very close to the intersection as the brick building is blocking the view. It's a 40kph road where locals often go a little faster. At that speed, you may kinda have to slam the brakes to yield to sudden incoming traffic. If you're not local, do you drive the speed limit and trust your instinct, or do you brake after every block to figure out who's going to yield?
https://www.google.com/maps/@62.3236831,27.8983542,3a,75y,14...
Same town, different street. The stubby little street on the right might look like a small parking lot, but it's not. And they have no yield sign. Even the locals regularly fail to yield around here. Luckily the speed limit here is only 20kph so it's not particularly dangerous. Shame that's not true of all the intersections that lack the signs where you'd expect them to be.
https://www.google.com/maps/@62.3143408,27.8768849,3a,75y,32...
In Denmark the minor/major road is marked using "yield" signs drawn on the road:
https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6869206,12.4609582,3a,75y,26...
As it also in in Britain:
https://www.google.com/maps/@53.402404,-2.1741907,3a,75y,230...
or like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@53.4030975,-2.1705867,3a,75y,34...
From memory, that's also the case in several other European countries.
I guess the reason we don't rely on road marks so much is that they're covered by snow & ice half the year. That plus frost heaving & constant snow plowing & studded tyres are very effective at erasing the road markings.
Idaho stopping is really just a hacky manual substitute for electric assist and automatic stabilization wheels. It's one that has an unfortunate slippery slope built into it.
It separates bike traffic from car traffic.
I had a fairly long commute that was punctuated by a set of lights. If I rode up to the red and waited for the green, I ended up passing and getting passed by countless numbers of the same set of cars during this stretch of road. If I blew the red, and got ahead of the pack of cars, I exposed myself to 1/10 the number of collision instances.
Bicycles are in a 3rd place between motor vehicles and pedestrians, of course they can transition between modes in ways that cars or pedestrians cannot. So can people on skateboards, skates and the myriad of personal electric vehicles.
I am extremely cognizant of how I operate a bicycle around pedestrians, the onus should be on the person operating the dangerous device in the interaction.
Cars don't own the road. Look at the history of jay walking and how the person car dynamic has changed over time.