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Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

Nothing wrong with a "rolling stop" if the sight lines are good and there are no pedestrians or crossing traffic. The point of a stop is to allow traffic to cross the intersection in a safe and orderly fashion. If you slow down, and verify that everything is clear, then that objective is achieved even if you don't come to a complete stop.

If these cameras were smart enough to issue citations when pedestrians or cross-traffic is present I could support it. But issuing a citation at a deserted intersection when no risk is created is just absurd.

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Then cities should adopt the yield signs that say that. I agree our system could be much smarter. So may timer-driven systems would be better if the computer knew the presence and number of cars, pedestrians, bikes, etc.

I could support this if you combined it with criminal and civil liability when you guess wrong and run someone over while blowing your stop-sign. Right now, that's a $500 ticket at best, and it happens every day.

The whole problem is that people don't look for pedestrians -- they look for another car that might hit them. So they are looking the wrong way. And then they tell the cops some sob-story about how the dead pedestrian "came out of nowhere".

Um, no. If you hit and injure someone in a crosswalk you can be sure you will face civil liability. Hope you have enough insurance (the legally required minimums are far too low).

The problem with running stop signs and red lights is that all the real risk falls on other people. Your likely fine for making a no-look right on red over a kid in a crosswalk is maybe $500. And there isn't really a tort for killing children outside the USA.

As I said - I'd be happy to delegate more to the judgement of drivers, as long as we measure an eye for an eye, and a life for a life.

People just treat "yield" signs as "look out" signs because of their severe underuse. Nobody would know to treat it like a stop sign in this case.

I live near a fairly busy (~3,000 vehicles/day) intersection that is controlled with a yield sign, which is itself a very unusual feature for this area.

This enables me to spend as much time as I wish observing how people use it.

Some people get it right. Many get it wrong -- either treating it like a stop sign (it isn't), or treating it as a Just Go sign (it isn't).

However, what's perhaps actually-interesting is that I've not noticed any wrecks there -- ever. So however it does or does not work, it seems to at least be "safe."

Except for the "you really ought to merge here" type yields where of course they must stop.

How about smart traffic signals that detect traffic and manage traffic accordingly. For example, there are traffic lights that manage the traffic between a high throughput road and a low throughput road. In this instance, it could wait to cycle when multiple -thresholds are met like amount of time plus presence of automobiles waiting. More sophisticated systems might optimize for flow/throughput without overly frustrating any driver.

The problem with that is that it gives people power to control them. We already see tons of tragedy of the commons behavior with municipalities screwing with light timing and speed limits. The less knobs to turn the better, because 99.999% of people who want to turn the knobs want to do it for selfish reasons.

How so? Can you give an example of a municipality that you feel like messed with light timing for "selfish" reasons?

> If you slow down, and verify that everything is clear, then that objective is achieved even if you don't come to a complete stop.

There are too many failure points there to trust mediocre meat sacks to follow that process correctly. Remember that driving rules and restrictions are not written assuming an alert, effective, and skilled driver operating a well maintained vehicle, they are written assuming an average person who has successfully completed a driver's test driving something that passes basic road worthiness checks.

It works well enough in other countries than America.

E.g. in the Netherlands or Germany there's no need for 4-way stops and such. If no other signage applies, then whoever is on the "right" side has priority over the people on the "left" side. And exceptions do apply, i.e. it's not "that simple" either. It does depend on whether both roads are on the same level or not. A road to your right that has a sidewalk border stone running across it does not give them the right of way, while if the sidewalk border stops and both roads intersect directly at the same level, then the road to your right does have right of way.

So e.g. if you take a typical urban development with lots of little streets and houses, where you'd see a lot of rolling stops in America, nobody's gonna stop at every intersection, rolling or not there. This does go as far as when cars from all directions arrive at the same time, then nobody has automatic right of way and one of them has to wave the person to their right through and will be the last allowed to proceed.

I think you may not be familiar with how it works typically in the US. In the US residential streets are almost always 2 way stops. The streets on the narrow sides of the blocks only typically stop when two of these roads cross. Residential areas are laid out to minimize those crossings. Bigger streets than those are controlled by lights. Most people shouldn't come across more than two 4 way stops. Unless you are driving to another residential area. My case is an outlier in that I have to cross from into the older part of town that isn't on the typical NSEW grid. For my drive 1.5 mile drive, one way is four 4 way stops (42 intersections) and the other is two (21 intersections). I'm not sure your wave is necessarily better during the day you almost always have multiple cars at the intersection. I'm not sure if in your description if only one car would go at a time, but in a 4 way stop it pretty much syncs up so the majority of the time two cars are crossing at the same time. Not much of a burden.

No two way stops either. The non right of way sides simply have a sign that tells them they don't have the right of way (upside down red bordered triangle) or nothing at all but the effect is the same. You'll slow down a bit to be able to make sure there's nobody coming from your left but you are not expected or required to stop at all.

In essence it's a sign for you to do a rolling stop so to speak actually. But if sightlines are good you can go as fast as the turn radius allows.

The problem is that you can't always tell that there are no pedestrians or crossing traffic unless you take enough time to come to a complete stop. There are plenty of stop signs where that's not true, but also plenty where it is, and it's not always clear which one it is to the driver.

I think the right fix here isn't total enforcement nor relaxed enforcement, but relaxed signage. If sight lines are good enough that it's safe to roll through, that should be a yield, not a stop. Stop should mean, you actually need to come to a complete stop to safely navigate this intersection. Then you can enforce it without qualms.

Signage is ineffective in addressing short term environmental or visibility impacts. Sure, it might be easy to see during the day with clear visibility. What about at night? Fog? Snow or rainstorm that is restricting visibility? Some dropped a storage pod on the road that obstructs the view of everything except a yield sign?

Those limitations aren't restricted to intersections, if someone doesn't know how to safely drive in fog they'll be just as unsafe the rest of the time as when approaching an intersection with a yield instead of a stop sign.

> If sight lines are good enough that it's safe to roll through, that should be a yield, not a stop

They are

Definitely not, there are tons of stop signs in places with low speeds and great sight lines that are perfectly safe to treat as a yield. And conversely, there are occasionally some interesting places (on-ramps for very old freeways) that have a yield where it's not safe to proceed without stopping first.

I would bet on traffic planners’ assessment of these variables to be more reliable and comprehensive than yours, in general.

Spoken like someone who has never driven a car.

Nah, spoken like someone repeatedly humbled by the complexity and detail of domains other than my own.

“I can drive a car therefore I understand traffic design better than traffic designers” is obviously an absurd statement when you just say it outright instead of condescendingly implying it.

> HN commentator revolutionizes traffic design with groundbreaking insight: consider the sight lines

I doubt anyone is even analyzing most of these intersections. Low-traffic residential streets just automatically get a stop sign regardless.

you can also be humbled by how little thought goes into a lot of car infrastructure.

eg. rather than picking a speed limit, and building the road to encourage that speed limit, american engineers will build the road, then set the speed limit by how fast people typically drive on it

Pretty sure it doesn't even go that far most of the time. Around here, there seem to be a few simple rules based on the road's intended use and the area it's in. Lower-traffic residential streets are 25MPH, as are somewhat busier streets in dense areas. Other roads that connect more distant places are 35MPH. And that's about it. One road I frequent has a broad section with parking on both sides, one lane in each direction that would be plenty wide enough for two cars abreast, and a center turn lane. And then there's a narrow section barely wide enough for one lane in each direction, with densely packed houses whose driveways connect straight to the road, and a hill that sharply limits visibility. People tend to go 25MPH in that section and 40+ on the wide section. The limit in both places is 35. About two miles away there's a major connector with 3-4 lanes each way, divided by a median. People often go 50 there. The limit is, you guessed it, 35.

Ah, yes, the same people who's prior iteration of industry fads and silver bullets we're mopping up right now.

Who? Which people? What industry fads? Which silver bullets? Who is mopping them up, and how?

We've crossed paths in several threads now and your comments follow this pattern of vague gesticulation toward all the bad people being some undefined monolith who did some vague thing.

What specifically do you mean here?

There is less than zero chance I am going to waste my time adding tons of language to fairly simple comments to appease your need for specificity. I know that individuals are not groups. I don't care, groups make up of individuals take action so I will address groups. I feel no need to cite sources for observable common experience. We both know that you would not be satisfied if I did.

Okay. You can save even more time by not commenting at all!

I'm not asking for you to "cite sources" lol, I'm asking you to "add substance." I literally cannot understand what the fuck you're talking about, and I suspect that's because you don't either.

Good point, another thing that the EU tends to do differently from the US. US rarely uses "Yield." The only places I generally see it are at roundabout entries.

Often on EU roads they will use "sharks teeth" yeild markers where a side road enters or crosses a main road. The requirement there is essentially "proceed if clear" a full stop is not required. I have rarely (maybe never) seen a US-style 4-way stop there (my experience is limited to Scandinavia and Germany).

In the UK, driving a decade all over, never seen a 4 way stop.

I think that’s what lead to round-a-bouts. It forced slowing down without requiring a stop unless necessary.

With computer vision the case of checking for pedestrians in the vicinity is trivial. So these cameras are definitely worth it for that

I do disagree about the rolling stop though. After drunk driving, drivers getting too relaxed and working off of predictive execution has to be the biggest cause of road accidents. A driver rolling past a stop at high speed in a school zone cant react fast enough to kids running past or even just walking on predictive execution themselves because they think the car will stop.

Obviously there are degrees to rolling stops. one so slow that the driver can react easily (and is scanning so they can see the thing they need to react to) is fine, but some of the "rolling stops" ive seen in residential neighborhoods are crazy. Those definitely need to be made an example of.

Obviously thats when police discretion comes in. The police officer is the one issuing the ticket at the end of the day, so you need to trust that law enforcement wont be corrupt and pedantic. No amount of technology is gonna fix that

Yes, and to clarify that is the "rolling stop" I am talking about. Slow down, enough to verify that everything is clear, this will often mean coming to a nearly complete stop, especially if there are cars ahead of you or crossing. There's no need to come to a dead stop (and for how long? One second? Five? If you wait too long the driver on the cross street will get impatient and go out of turn). If I roll through a stop sign at a walking pace or slower that's not materially more unsafe than coming to a dead stop, and perhaps it is safer as it doesn't frustrate other drivers).

Of course if there are pedestrians waiting to cross, or the sight lines are bad, you behave accordingly.

Worse than that is in my city they decided to add a forced stop to pedestrians crossing a round a bout so if you’re in the roundabout and a pedestrian wants to cross you have to stop before exiting the round about which defeats the purpose of a roundabout…

There's nothing wrong with pointing an unloaded gun at someone. There's no bullets in it, so what's the harm. You can even put your finger on the trigger without any real danger

Laws, rules, morays, norms etc. are in place for the "lowest common denominator", wether that be malicious people, people with impairments, older drivers, newer drivers etc. etc.

you as a human of course know not to hit a person walking thru an intersection. But a drunk person might think "eh I never fully stop and I don't see anyone".

We must all follow the rules to a TEE, ie; stopping even if completely clear, to signal to the lowest common denominators "this is the rule, you must stop regardless."

If this where not the case, by your logic, you can blow thru red lights, make left turns on red, drive against traffic etc. "as long as it's clear."

I personally am okay with enshittification of AI traffic cams if it promotes more aggressive traffic compliance. The police sure aren't.

> Laws, rules, morays, norms etc.

I think you mean "mores".

When the jaws open wide and there's more jaws inside, that's a moray.

>I personally am okay with enshittification of AI traffic cams if it promotes more aggressive traffic compliance. The police sure aren't.

What I see here is the just the opportunity to create another revenue stream in the name of “the wellbeing of the community” based on cheap policing.

Spoken like a C programmer!

> Nothing wrong with a "rolling stop" if the sight lines are good and there are no pedestrians or crossing traffic.

Why bother rolling the stop, it should be ok to blow through it at full speed if you're sure it's clear.

It's about the incremental injury / death; full speed is going to cause more. Going through at 3mph shouldn't cause more, but if rolling statistically does then full stop should be enforced.

But what is the point of rolling through at 3mph? To save 2 seconds? The reality is people roll stops because they are a bit lazy, and stopping fully requires marginally more effort. And while that laziness is harmless at empty intersections, it invariably turns into complacency and habit that bleeds into situations that aren't as safe. The same dynamic happens with signaling lane changes.

But it is to save time. Coming to a full takes no more effort. Just keep your foot on the brake pedal.

This works for emergency vehicles

It's just optimizing the reward function. The traffic ticket maximizer is the paperclip maximizer's sibling.

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