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Comment by ajmurmann | Hacker News Reader

When I first visited the US the frequent stop signs were one of the strangest things to me. They are so rare in Europe where there are yield and right of way signs instead. Ever since I've been wondering if the fossil fuel lobby is causing this to drive up fuel consumption.

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I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in the 70s. Our house was on a corner.

The city decided that just about every uncontrolled intersection should have a stop sign, and for busy intersections, a 4-way stop. It happened that they put in the stop signs in the winter. We had a few weeks of entertainment watching out the front window as car after car was caught off-guard by the new stop sign. They'd try to panic stop at the last second and of course slide right into the intersection.

Yep, and when there's snow on the roads and a stop sign top of a hill, we treat them as yield signs so we don't get stuck on the hill.

I find the "right of way" signs in Europe way more strange, specifically when the signs aren't present. When you're on a main thoroughfare, it's pretty obvious you have the right of way. It's on the smaller side streets where you need to yield to the person to your right that things get a little weird.

That's how it works, yes, but why is it strange and a little weird?

It's natural once you've learnt it -- throroughfare doesn't really matter, the street you're on is signed as having right of way or you have yield signs, otherwise always yield to the car from the right. No signage => yield right.

I'm still not sure who's got the right of way e.g. in US parking lots or unsigned back roads. The person going straight, I think? But that's not always clear depending on road topology. "Yield to the right" seems more well-defined, but maybe because I got used to it.

You always have the right of way in the U.S. unless there is a stop sign or a yield sign. If both directions have stop signs, then the person who arrived first has the right-of-way. To me, it's more straight forward to always have right-of-way, but that's probably because I'm used to it.

Unsigned intersections exist and they work as in Europe. The reality of them is people handle them relatively well as long as lines of sight are good, and when they become a problem they’re improved (usually by adding a stop sign that people ignore).

Traffic calming is better done with mechanisms not signs.

I only really see here stop signs when there is either very poor visibility or very high speed difference. In my mind it works well enough.

> You always have the right of way in the U.S. unless there is a stop sign or a yield sign.

Incorrect. There are explicit right of way rules for completely unsigned intersections. Yes, they do exist. My neighborhood hasn’t been fully polluted with stop signs yet, so about half our intersections are unsigned. The last crash in the neighborhood that I am aware of was about 10 years ago and was wholly unrelated to intersection control.

Driveways, parking lots, and some merge lanes don't have stop or yield signs. So it's not always marked.

Much more interesting are one lane tunnels or bridges that have a yield sign on both sides. Effectively, people just do fist come first served, but if it's at the same time you have to negotiate who has the right of way.

Sydney has a crazy number of signs but I like their use of yield signs and relative lack of unsigned intersections.

It took me a while to learn to automatically look for European yield signs. It was by far the highest effort to change between the two systems for me.

I don't like the default to yield to progress as it means one is looking for the absence of something most of the time.

Small streets can be difficult but often in the U.K. you just get a thick dashed line across the road when you need to give way in a normal place. That’s usually sufficient to figure out which street takes priority over the other (intersections where the middle isn’t part of one of the roads are uncommon) and where to give way.

The weirdest part for me is that there is no reliable way to tell if the crossing street also has a stop sign (at least in CA). After 5 years of living in the US I still get annoyed about it.

The states I have lived in always as a “all-way” sign at the bottom of the stop signs to indicate if the crossing streets have stop sign as well

I think there's non-infrequently an "All Way" sign under the stop sign if the crossing street has one too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-way_stop But I'm not sure how common that is.

I remember in Illinois seeing a little sign under the stop sign like "4 way", showing you that it was a 4 way stop. Here's a street view: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8659021,-87.6285001,3a,41.2y...

I don't really recall these in New York, but I went for a search on Street View, and we seem to do the same thing here: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6700018,-73.9955353,3a,75y,4...

It seems like that if cross traffic doesn't stop, the stop sign doesn't have a marker. If it does, it gets a tag like "ALL WAY". No idea if this is standardized or an artifact of my sampling, or if it varies between states.

(I had to really rack my brain to find a 4 way stop in NYC. Ultimately the satellite view was helpful, they seem to not paint crosswalks if traffic doesn't stop. Seems dangerous! People are going to cross those streets. But I digress.)

In AZ "4 Way" or "All Way" signs are almost always present when applicable. These "Cross Traffic Does Not Stop" signs [1] are common (but not universal) at other intersections.

[1] https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/pinalcentral.co...

that sign (along with cross traffic does not stop) exists in CA, but it's not universal enough to rely upon an absence of that sign meaning a 4 way stop.

The worst variant I know on this idea afflicts several intersections in my daily driving environment (west side of Portland): stop signs with little addenda saying "3-way stop". So one direction doesn't have to stop. And they don't tell you which one it is. Is that car coming from your left going to barrel through, or not? Maybe that's a stop sign over there, maybe not, it's hard to tell from the back. Come on.

My driving instructor* ~20 years ago said that's the reason stop signs are hexagons – you can see it's a stop sign from the other side. Same for why yield signs are inverted triangles – the person who doesn't have that sign can see from its shape what it is.

*this was for an underage moped license

I believe all the international signs have unique shapes and the stop and yield signs are borrowed from there.

No, only the yield and stop signs, and the right of way sign (diamond shaped) have unique shapes. Oh wait, the one way sign too, being a long rectangle. Other signs are shaped according to group: Warning signs are triangular, tip up, signs forbidding or mandating something are round (distinguished by color), and informational signs are rectangular. And one interesting case is the do not enter sign, which is usually curved. That makes it more obvious to someone looking for a turn, but also you can recognize it from behind so you know to go in the far left lane if you plan to make a left turn.

There (should) be a very small rectanglular sign right below the stop sign that says "4 way" meaning there are stops on all 4 corners. I've always thought these were way too small to notice and I wouldn't be surprised if they were often missing.

Those aren't there (at least not reliably) in California. One of the most frustrating parts of driving here for me too.

That is part of why the MUTCD requires that the hexagonal shape of the stop sign not be obscured from either side. That way, you have a clear visual reference if there is an hexagonal sign in the opposing directions.

*octagonal

In New Zealand, the paint markings on the road make it clear. Yellow line across the road for stop, white for give way. Examples here: https://www.nzta.govt.nz/roadcode/code-for-cycling/intersect...

Like any good UI, it isn’t something I could immediately recall, but it is something I mostly unconsciously notice when driving. You can also look for signs, but it isn’t as trustworthy.

I really like this design. The UK has a similar system, where there's always a line across the road whenever road users have to stop or give way. There are different types of lines [1] but even without knowing by heart what each of them means I've always found it obvious what one has to do (based on signs and other road markings).

[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/560aa6c7ed915...

Is there a name for the logical fallacy that if an aspect of a system benefits a group, that the group must have planned said system aspect?

It's a constant thread amongst all conspiracy theorists: GW Bush BENEFITED from 9/11, therefore he must have had some hand in planning it. Tech monopolise BENEFITED from COVID, therefore it's a "plandemic". Fuel sellers BENEFIT from stop signs, therefore they coordinate putting more of them up.

Yes, they are called conspiracy theories. I don’t know if there is a more specific name, but I don’t think calling it a fallacy is correct as a fallacy means incorrect, while a conspiracy means it is unprovable/secret. Conspiracies can be false, but they can also be true with proper evidence and then it is called a scandal.

> but I don’t think calling it a fallacy is correct as a fallacy means incorrect

The (logical) fallacy is in the word "must". Let's look at the statement again:

> if an aspect of a system benefits a group, that the group must have planned said system aspect

This is incorrect because sometimes groups benefit from things they haven't planned. If the statement were changed to "that there is a good chance the group planned said system aspect", it would no longer be a fallacy.

It's the same as the slippery slope fallacy. Slippery slopes are real things. Sometimes A does get out of hand and cause B. Saying that if A happens, B must happen is where it becomes a fallacy. Changing this to "If A happens, there's a good chance it will snowball and B will happen" also removes this fallacy.

I agree with the other commentor that this relates to conspiracy theories, but I find that conspiracy theories are where people go when they have no evidence to support their premise. In other words, the ratio of alleged to likely conspiracy theories is really bad for theorists.

Stop signs’ utility in shutting up squeaky wheels or appeasing anti-car agitators are a simpler and more direct explanation.

I think it’s a simple post hoc fallacy. Stop signs proliferated afterBig Oil gained a degree of power over Congress, therefore Big Oil must be part of the cause.

That said, there is precedent for traffic laws being set by fuel consumption concerns and there was industry pushback against it that led to its repeal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law

The difference between Drive 55 and the stop signs is that Drive 55 was enacted by a single legislative act, and stop signs proliferate due to a combination of state code, municipal code, civil engineering practices and limited imagination. Traffic circles are currently proliferating just as easy, and reduce fuel consumption.

it has a name, but not as a fallacy. cui bono, "who benefits?" in the law is suggested as a good place to look (for suspects, for responsible parties) because there's motive.

You basically need them to enforce pedestrian crossings.

I grew up in an older suburb that made judicious use of yield signs (give right-away to pedestrians AND vehicles). I remember being told as a kid to always give the right-of-way to cars and only cross when the intersection was clear - Smart advice from my parents, because cars had no issue zipping thru the intersection without slowing down while I stood at the corner waiting to cross.

Less upfront cost, more longterm cost. You can make a huge grid of streets and just stop sign all of the intersections and avoid any unpleasant calculations of who should have right of way. This way, for the past 70-80 years or so, developers have been able to just ctrl-c ctrl-v mindless designs over greater land areas than city planners can keep up with.

These aren’t related. Simple street patterns do not require stop signs per se. If you have a bunch of four-way intersections, potentially two ways can have yield signs and two ways can have right of way.

Or just have yield-right or yield-left rules apply. And get rid of signage for anything but the main high throughput routes.

Maybe most of Europe. In Greece, my experience was that they seem to throw them everywhere, even if they tend to be largely ignored. For intersections where they really want you to stop, they’ll have two or three stop signs spaced maybe 40–50 meters apart leading up to the intersection. You know, for emphasis I guess.

When I lived in Hamburg in Germany, there was an arterial on my way to work where cars definitely _did not_ stop for pedestrians. The street was 2 lanes wide with an spot to stand in the middle.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, but the stop sign (around here) means you have to come to a full stop and yield to crossing traffic, which includes bikes, cars and other vehicles, but not pedestrians.

Strange - in most US states you have to yield to pedestrians at all times, even if they’re doing something stupid.

You are meant to yield at certain dedicated crossings without lights and you can’t negligently hit someone just because they didn’t use a crossing (jaywalking isn’t a crime either but there are some fast roads where people are not allowed to walk on). And obviously drivers are meant to be courteous towards pedestrians, especially where the space is more shared (eg suburban streets or some country roads), and this would generally mean yielding after some polite eye-contact-based negotiation.

I know of precisely zero stop signs in the area I live, and have seen two stop signs in my lifetime in Norway.

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