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Comment by d1zzy | Hacker News Reader

I think a lot of the reason why I (can't speak for others) went from a super strict traffic law observer to "slow and roll through stop signs if nobody is there" on a bike isn't just the momentum conservation, which I agree is one of the big factors, but think about this: do you really think that drivers would make a full stop, as much as they do now, if suddenly they wouldn't have access to freeways and other high speed roads with no/synchronized/very few intersections and instead would be forced to take residential roads full of stops? This factor is easy to miss for most drivers, but they can do this experiment on themselves, change their commute route to only include very low traffic (ie "safe") roads, and take that route every day, every week for a few months (it was a slow "grinding" process). Let's see then if they still continue to make a full stop as before for every one of those 20 new full STOP intersections...

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do you really think that drivers would make a full stop, as much as they do now, if suddenly they wouldn't have access to freeways and other high speed roads with no/synchronized/very few intersections and instead would be forced to take residential roads full of stops?

Yes. There are drivers who never drive on freeways, and in my experience, they always come to a complete stop. My ex was one such driver for awhile.

change their commute route to only include very low traffic (ie "safe") roads, and take that route every day, every week for a few months (it was a slow "grinding" process). Let's see then if they still continue to make a full stop as before for every one of those 20 new full STOP intersections...

Even in this situation, my experience is that conscientious automobile drivers still approximate the effect of a full stop. There are some idiot automobile drivers who don't approximate the effect of a full stop, just as there are idiot bike riders. The cost-benefit conditions are simply different, and bicycle "momentum hacking" tends to take people far away from what a careful car driver would be doing.

The fact that you'd entertain such a thought about residential drivers makes me question your conscientiousness.

Anecdote, but if you hang out in the central/outer sunset neighborhood in SF, you will see this behavior. Tons of stop signs with limited access to thoroughfares in a quiet low-traffic neighborhood. I would say well over 25% of cars do rolling stops, and every now and then you will see a driver that doesn't even bother stopping.

I would say well over 25% of cars do rolling stops

Rolling stops in cars still tend to approximate the effect of a complete stop. Rolling stops on bikes tend to approximate the effect of the stop sign not being there at all. It's two different cost/benefit situations producing two different outcomes.

The distinction seems to be that one bothers you more. The car, even if it is driven completely legally and comes to a complete stop always, is still creating more negative externalities than the bike, as long as the rider is paying attention.

Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by rolling stop. The behavior I see is probably better described as a yield. The car will slow down, to 5-10 mph at the stop sign before accelerating back up to 25-35. I regularly walk through this neighborhood, and its outright dangerous. I feel much safer walking in downtown SF. My hunch is these drivers are mostly just looking for other cars and cops, as I have had a ton of close encounters as pedestrian. And to make matters worse, the streets are not very well lit at night.

Rolling stops in cars “approximate” full stops closer in the sense that 5–10 miles/hour is closer to 0 than it is to the 30 miles/hour they were traveling before.

By contrast, 5–10 miles/hour on a bike is about equally far from 0 and the 15 miles/hour the bike was traveling before.

The biggest difference though is that getting hit by a car doing a rolling stop will put you in the hospital and possibly kill you.

[Stanley Roberts' piece on this stop sign intersection gives the lie to this statement](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88neOxfa9IE). This isn't the only one he's done but it should be sufficient.

At least in SF, stop signs are proper optional. I see cars running them every day. It's just that when you see a car go 40 mph (5 over) and then slow down to 10 mph when it goes through it looks like it nearly stopped. When a cyclist goes from 15 mph to 10 mph it looks like he didn't do shit.

When I bicycle I stop fully at stop signs because I do it partly for exercise and I like practising the track stand, but I see people go through every day on my commute. If I were to bike in a hurry, I could see myself doing the slow down and treat-stop-as-yield.

Mostly there's a lot of bullshit on this topic, I've noticed. Somehow if you talk to drivers, they'll say things like "SF drivers don't know how to drive. They won't even see you before they go through a stop sign." then when the topic becomes cyclists v. drivers the narrative changes to how drivers turn into ever-correct rule followers. That seems to me that people are making an in-group v out-group distinction when they describe this, and appropriately changing their language.

I've got to tell you, I've seen it, and this "approximate the effect of a complete stop" is bullshit. Well, don't believe me, watch the video or wait at a busy trafficked intersection. (You can find good ones on the streets off Lincoln in the Sunset - heavily stop-signed and frequently violated)

Yes.

Also, if you want to share the road that goes both ways. If I have to obey the laws that keep everyone safe so should you.

Easy to say. I want to see how many of the drivers stating such things would still do a full stop at an empty intersection after having biked through it hundreds of times before and it's just one of the many such stops they have on their commute route every day. Basically I want to see statistics/studies. We may conclude then that it's not the fault of the individual if the large majority of us end up bending the rules given the same circumstances but it may be the fault of the circumstances (which are in the control of cities/etc who control public infrastructure).

Cool, go off and grab that data.

In the meantime though, obey the laws of the road or stay off it.

I want to see how many of the drivers stating such things would still do a full stop at an empty intersection after having biked through it hundreds of times before and it's just one of the many such stops they have on their commute route every day. Basically I want to see statistics/studies. We may conclude then that it's not the fault of the individual if the large majority of us end up bending the rules

So, you're entitled to bend the rules, so long as enough other people are with you? Why don't you extrapolate the Kantian Imperative on that one? This is precisely why we can't have nice things. I guess we should just give up on trash cans, and everyone should just throw everything in the street.

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