City council voted today to allow bicyclists to ignore stop signs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cars NEVER stop for stop signs unless there is conflicting traffic. Seriously - stand by any stop sign and see for yourself. Every single one rolls through.

Allowing cyclists to roll through increases safety because they can proceed through the intersection when they see it's clear.

They never stop even if there is conflicting traffic. That is why the stop light cameras (like the one in Glover Park) rake in millions in fines. Because none of the drivers in this city actually knows what "stop" means. The reality is that - outside of the intersections with these cameras - the Idaho Stop is perfectly normal and accepted behavior even for heavy vehicles. The total hypocrisy of drivers on this - and other issues of compliance with traffic laws - is phenomenal.

Err, bicyclists are the ones claiming here that they should be exempt from a law (stopping at stop signs) that everyone else must follow.

Sure, you may have seen a driver run a stop sign but there's a half million vehicles in the city so you're going to see all kinds of things.

And drivers are not asking the city council to give them a special exemption from the law.

A cyclist yielding at an open intersection does not harm anyone. Cars not stopping can be fatal.

That's not how any of this is going to work.

No one is going to remember or even be aware of any details about "open intersections" or any other caveats that may be in the bill. People will just interpret this as: Bicyclists don't have to obey stop signs or traffic lights.

Maybe some drivers will interpret this as stop signs being optional too? People will have all kinds of crazy interpretations of this.

Cyclists understand an "Idaho Stop" we understand physics and we understand self-preservation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bicyclists hate having to stop at the end of each block for a stop sign because they think it's too physically tiring to constantly have to stop and start again. That's why they're doing this.

The safety argument (which makes zero sense) is just a fig leaf.

Well to be fair, when a cyclist take the lane as they are legally allowed to do, the cars stacked up behind them don't want to stop for the cyclist at each stop sign either.

Yeah, next time you're driving behind a bicycle, see how happy you are if the cyclist stops at every stop sign.

Pretty sure this has never happened so I guess we'll never know how a driver would respond

I have personally done it and I will never do it again. Between the people screaming at me and the cars gunning their engines to illegally pass me, never again.

This is super weird argument. So you're saying you shouldnt have to obey a traffic law because a driver "might" scowl at you if you do? I drive and I wish bicyclists would stop at every stop sign. It seems not great for the city life in general for one class of travelers to think they're just completely exempt from traffic laws.

I personally think it's safer if everyone does what the other people around are expecting them to do, based on the law. But I will say that pretty often what happens is that I approach a stop sign on my bike while a car is already stopped there or is arriving before I will. I wave at the car to go as I approach the stop sign, while I'm slowing down. Instead, it sits there waiting for me and gestures for me to go. Which just slows down the process of everyone making it through the intersection. And then, yes, often the driver gives me a dirty look for ... I guess expecting them not to yield to me when it's not my right of way? Not sure.

I drive and my main problem with cyclists is how unpredictable they are. You have no idea what they're going to do or which traffic law they're going to decide to follow. I never feel that way about other drivers. Sure, some of them do stupid things but in general drivers obey the law and can be counted on obeying the law and that makes car traffic generally pretty predictable. This proposal by the city council will just make bicycle traffic that must more unpredictable (partly because who knows what an "open intersection" or whatever stupid terminology they're using even means). I don't get how that helps anyone.

But that’s what makes it fun! You never know who— or what — is going to come shooting out from your blind spot and cut you off before your right turn. Dc driving has never felt so exciting!

(Sigh) you are supposed to yield to traffic continuing straight before your right turn, even if they come shooting out of your blind spot, and you're also supposed to be as far right as possible before you start your turn, which would also help mitigate the problem you're complaining about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bicyclists hate having to stop at the end of each block for a stop sign because they think it's too physically tiring to constantly have to stop and start again. That's why they're doing this.

The safety argument (which makes zero sense) is just a fig leaf.

Well to be fair, when a cyclist take the lane as they are legally allowed to do, the cars stacked up behind them don't want to stop for the cyclist at each stop sign either.

Yeah, next time you're driving behind a bicycle, see how happy you are if the cyclist stops at every stop sign.

Pretty sure this has never happened so I guess we'll never know how a driver would respond

I have personally done it and I will never do it again. Between the people screaming at me and the cars gunning their engines to illegally pass me, never again.

This is super weird argument. So you're saying you shouldnt have to obey a traffic law because a driver "might" scowl at you if you do? I drive and I wish bicyclists would stop at every stop sign. It seems not great for the city life in general for one class of travelers to think they're just completely exempt from traffic laws.

I am saying I obeyed traffic laws and drivers yelled at me (not just scowl, but bodily threats) and crossed double yellow lines to pass me, only to blow through subsequent stop signs themselves. You are making light of what was a harrowing situation because I, as a cyclist, was following the laws on the books rather than what makes sense on the road.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The city endlessly harasses drivers and yet there seem to be no rules at all imposed on cyclists. They don't have to wear helmets. They're free to put young children on bikes in incredibly dangerous situations. And now they can ignore stop signs.

I am not sure where you get that drivers are harassed given they control, disproportionately, the public space they use, they decreasingly follow the rules of the road, etc. the entitlement of drivers is astounding.

[Anonymous]

Argh these posts drive me nuts. It's so obvious that the vast majority of the people posting on this thread have never used a bicycle as their main mode of transportation.

I have. For a year, I biked to work every day. Not in DC, but in another US city.

Coming to a full and complete stop and then restarting on a bicycle is incredibly physical taxing. If you want to fully stop, you need to put your foot down on the ground and then regain all your momentum when you start going again. It's grueling, especially when there are several in a row (as is common). It also does absolutely nothing for safety. When you're on a bicycle, going a typical commuter pace (ie, we're not talking about the Tour de France here), it's very easy to slow down and look, thoroughly, for vehicles and pedestrians as you're approaching a stop sign, without doing that full stop.

There are two ways that this removing this requirement actually increase safety:

1) Every single bicycle commuter quickly stops doing the full stop, because it's so wildly impractical, so you're essentially training bicyclists that the rules of the road don't apply to them. The signs and laws are for cars - bicycles are "different" - and they're not wrong. The rules around stop signs are designed for cars, not bikes. This mindset IS unsafe. It leads to things like not yielding to pedestrians in cross walks (bikers are way worse about this in my neighborhood than cars, I find), not stopping for stop LIGHTS (very unsafe!), going the wrong way down one way streets, etc. Changes like this, that align the rules of the road with the reality of both biking and driving prevent this attitude.

2) When you restart after a TRUE full stop as a biker, you're going very, very slowly the first 10-20 feet. That's when you're in the middle of the intersection! If you actually do this, you can easily come to a full and complete stop, see a clear intersection, and start proceeding forward, and then have a car show up and hit you. This is especially true in non-four way stops, where traffic isn't stopping from the cross street. It might be nearly physically impossible to get yourself safety to the other side of a wide road without risking getting hit by a car.

I understand what people are saying about cars that roll through stop signs - but having frequently done both, there is just such a huge difference in both what it's like to actually fully stop, and what the impacts on safety are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bicyclists hate having to stop at the end of each block for a stop sign because they think it's too physically tiring to constantly have to stop and start again. That's why they're doing this.

The safety argument (which makes zero sense) is just a fig leaf.

Well to be fair, when a cyclist take the lane as they are legally allowed to do, the cars stacked up behind them don't want to stop for the cyclist at each stop sign either.

Yeah, next time you're driving behind a bicycle, see how happy you are if the cyclist stops at every stop sign.

Pretty sure this has never happened so I guess we'll never know how a driver would respond

I have personally done it and I will never do it again. Between the people screaming at me and the cars gunning their engines to illegally pass me, never again.

This is super weird argument. So you're saying you shouldnt have to obey a traffic law because a driver "might" scowl at you if you do? I drive and I wish bicyclists would stop at every stop sign. It seems not great for the city life in general for one class of travelers to think they're just completely exempt from traffic laws.

I am saying I obeyed traffic laws and drivers yelled at me (not just scowl, but bodily threats) and crossed double yellow lines to pass me, only to blow through subsequent stop signs themselves. You are making light of what was a harrowing situation because I, as a cyclist, was following the laws on the books rather than what makes sense on the road.

If I were to make a list of the top 1000 reasons why the public hates cyclists, "cyclists obeying stop signs" would not make the list.

[Anonymous]

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1039012.page

We’ve already done this episode

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The city endlessly harasses drivers and yet there seem to be no rules at all imposed on cyclists. They don't have to wear helmets. They're free to put young children on bikes in incredibly dangerous situations. And now they can ignore stop signs.

How does it harm you if a cyclist doesn't wear a helmet?

Ok then don't claim that any of this is actually about safety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Argh these posts drive me nuts. It's so obvious that the vast majority of the people posting on this thread have never used a bicycle as their main mode of transportation.

I have. For a year, I biked to work every day. Not in DC, but in another US city.

Coming to a full and complete stop and then restarting on a bicycle is incredibly physical taxing. If you want to fully stop, you need to put your foot down on the ground and then regain all your momentum when you start going again. It's grueling, especially when there are several in a row (as is common). It also does absolutely nothing for safety. When you're on a bicycle, going a typical commuter pace (ie, we're not talking about the Tour de France here), it's very easy to slow down and look, thoroughly, for vehicles and pedestrians as you're approaching a stop sign, without doing that full stop.

There are two ways that this removing this requirement actually increase safety:

1) Every single bicycle commuter quickly stops doing the full stop, because it's so wildly impractical, so you're essentially training bicyclists that the rules of the road don't apply to them. The signs and laws are for cars - bicycles are "different" - and they're not wrong. The rules around stop signs are designed for cars, not bikes. This mindset IS unsafe. It leads to things like not yielding to pedestrians in cross walks (bikers are way worse about this in my neighborhood than cars, I find), not stopping for stop LIGHTS (very unsafe!), going the wrong way down one way streets, etc. Changes like this, that align the rules of the road with the reality of both biking and driving prevent this attitude.

2) When you restart after a TRUE full stop as a biker, you're going very, very slowly the first 10-20 feet. That's when you're in the middle of the intersection! If you actually do this, you can easily come to a full and complete stop, see a clear intersection, and start proceeding forward, and then have a car show up and hit you. This is especially true in non-four way stops, where traffic isn't stopping from the cross street. It might be nearly physically impossible to get yourself safety to the other side of a wide road without risking getting hit by a car.

I understand what people are saying about cars that roll through stop signs - but having frequently done both, there is just such a huge difference in both what it's like to actually fully stop, and what the impacts on safety are.

TL;DR: Fat guys in spandex are getting too tuckered out stopping at stop signs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Argh these posts drive me nuts. It's so obvious that the vast majority of the people posting on this thread have never used a bicycle as their main mode of transportation.

I have. For a year, I biked to work every day. Not in DC, but in another US city.

Coming to a full and complete stop and then restarting on a bicycle is incredibly physical taxing. If you want to fully stop, you need to put your foot down on the ground and then regain all your momentum when you start going again. It's grueling, especially when there are several in a row (as is common). It also does absolutely nothing for safety. When you're on a bicycle, going a typical commuter pace (ie, we're not talking about the Tour de France here), it's very easy to slow down and look, thoroughly, for vehicles and pedestrians as you're approaching a stop sign, without doing that full stop.

There are two ways that this removing this requirement actually increase safety:

1) Every single bicycle commuter quickly stops doing the full stop, because it's so wildly impractical, so you're essentially training bicyclists that the rules of the road don't apply to them. The signs and laws are for cars - bicycles are "different" - and they're not wrong. The rules around stop signs are designed for cars, not bikes. This mindset IS unsafe. It leads to things like not yielding to pedestrians in cross walks (bikers are way worse about this in my neighborhood than cars, I find), not stopping for stop LIGHTS (very unsafe!), going the wrong way down one way streets, etc. Changes like this, that align the rules of the road with the reality of both biking and driving prevent this attitude.

2) When you restart after a TRUE full stop as a biker, you're going very, very slowly the first 10-20 feet. That's when you're in the middle of the intersection! If you actually do this, you can easily come to a full and complete stop, see a clear intersection, and start proceeding forward, and then have a car show up and hit you. This is especially true in non-four way stops, where traffic isn't stopping from the cross street. It might be nearly physically impossible to get yourself safety to the other side of a wide road without risking getting hit by a car.

I understand what people are saying about cars that roll through stop signs - but having frequently done both, there is just such a huge difference in both what it's like to actually fully stop, and what the impacts on safety are.

TL;DR: Fat guys in spandex are getting too tuckered out stopping at stop signs.

I’m so excited for 20 more pagers of whiny folks complaining about this and trying to justify why it’s bad. You lost this, you lost ct ave. The city is forging ahead without you and your four wheels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Argh these posts drive me nuts. It's so obvious that the vast majority of the people posting on this thread have never used a bicycle as their main mode of transportation.

I have. For a year, I biked to work every day. Not in DC, but in another US city.

Coming to a full and complete stop and then restarting on a bicycle is incredibly physical taxing. If you want to fully stop, you need to put your foot down on the ground and then regain all your momentum when you start going again. It's grueling, especially when there are several in a row (as is common). It also does absolutely nothing for safety. When you're on a bicycle, going a typical commuter pace (ie, we're not talking about the Tour de France here), it's very easy to slow down and look, thoroughly, for vehicles and pedestrians as you're approaching a stop sign, without doing that full stop.

There are two ways that this removing this requirement actually increase safety:

1) Every single bicycle commuter quickly stops doing the full stop, because it's so wildly impractical, so you're essentially training bicyclists that the rules of the road don't apply to them. The signs and laws are for cars - bicycles are "different" - and they're not wrong. The rules around stop signs are designed for cars, not bikes. This mindset IS unsafe. It leads to things like not yielding to pedestrians in cross walks (bikers are way worse about this in my neighborhood than cars, I find), not stopping for stop LIGHTS (very unsafe!), going the wrong way down one way streets, etc. Changes like this, that align the rules of the road with the reality of both biking and driving prevent this attitude.

2) When you restart after a TRUE full stop as a biker, you're going very, very slowly the first 10-20 feet. That's when you're in the middle of the intersection! If you actually do this, you can easily come to a full and complete stop, see a clear intersection, and start proceeding forward, and then have a car show up and hit you. This is especially true in non-four way stops, where traffic isn't stopping from the cross street. It might be nearly physically impossible to get yourself safety to the other side of a wide road without risking getting hit by a car.

I understand what people are saying about cars that roll through stop signs - but having frequently done both, there is just such a huge difference in both what it's like to actually fully stop, and what the impacts on safety are.

I would not say stopping at stop signs is "grueling" unless every stop is uphill for a long way, but the other two points you make are very good. It doesn't make sense to have the exact same rules for different users of the road. Some of that is intuitive: Bikes are unlikely to exceed the posted speed limit, for instance, whereas — especially now that the limit is 20 in most of D.C. — cars speed virtually all the time. Other differences between bikes and cars aren't obvious unless you're on a bike: Your ability to see in a bike is basically unrestricted, while cars have all sorts of blind spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The city endlessly harasses drivers and yet there seem to be no rules at all imposed on cyclists. They don't have to wear helmets. They're free to put young children on bikes in incredibly dangerous situations. And now they can ignore stop signs.

How does it harm you if a cyclist doesn't wear a helmet?

Ok then don't claim that any of this is actually about safety.

It's about making accidents less likely. Helmets are about making you safer if you're in one. Both are about safety. For what it's worth, there are also a lot of studies looking at whether helmets do or don't help with preventing accidents; the evidence is mixed, but some studies have found, counterintuitively, that cars are MORE LIKELY to hit cyclists in helmets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The city endlessly harasses drivers and yet there seem to be no rules at all imposed on cyclists. They don't have to wear helmets. They're free to put young children on bikes in incredibly dangerous situations. And now they can ignore stop signs.

How does it harm you if a cyclist doesn't wear a helmet?

Ok then don't claim that any of this is actually about safety.

It's about making accidents less likely. Helmets are about making you safer if you're in one. Both are about safety. For what it's worth, there are also a lot of studies looking at whether helmets do or don't help with preventing accidents; the evidence is mixed, but some studies have found, counterintuitively, that cars are MORE LIKELY to hit cyclists in helmets.

The thing about helmets that is well-known is that they reduce caution and increase dangerous behavior and can lead to more injuries. They also protect the brain and reduce concussions when accidents happen.

The problem is not with cars and bicycle helmets. The problem is with bicyclists.

[Anonymous]

Did they also vote to get rid of right turns on red?

That has killed a couple bicyclists this year. Maybe if we just banned cars entirely, bicycling would be safer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The city endlessly harasses drivers and yet there seem to be no rules at all imposed on cyclists. They don't have to wear helmets. They're free to put young children on bikes in incredibly dangerous situations. And now they can ignore stop signs.

How does it harm you if a cyclist doesn't wear a helmet?

Ok then don't claim that any of this is actually about safety.

It's about making accidents less likely. Helmets are about making you safer if you're in one. Both are about safety. For what it's worth, there are also a lot of studies looking at whether helmets do or don't help with preventing accidents; the evidence is mixed, but some studies have found, counterintuitively, that cars are MORE LIKELY to hit cyclists in helmets.

The thing about helmets that is well-known is that they reduce caution and increase dangerous behavior and can lead to more injuries. They also protect the brain and reduce concussions when accidents happen.

The problem is not with cars and bicycle helmets. The problem is with bicyclists.

Surely you misspelled "drivers" there.