13 Responses to “Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop”

• tdp says:
  

  As a cyclist I get pretty pissed when I see other cyclist breaking the law and when I have the chance, give them the what for but where I live (touristy), we get a constant stream of bad drivers and bad cyclists.

  At first I saw this as a “can of worms” but after seeing this video I think it has hopes. The law has to be specific like in the video and that blowing through a stop is not only an offence but a costly one. You know people are going to do it but maybe making the fine steep enough will keep most from doing so. There would also need to be a large campaign (hell I think there should be a campaign right now because of the amount of new cyclists currently on the road) to educate cyclists not only on this law but the rest of them as well.

  That said, motorists are going to have a bitch fest with this one.

  Posted on April 14th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
• Loren Hackerott says:
  

  There is one point I would like to add. By not coming to a complete stop, the momentum allows the cyclist to clear the intersection sooner. Therefore the cyclist is out of the danger zone sooner and the waiting motorist, is on his way sooner.

  Posted on April 14th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
• Andy B from Jersey says:
  

  An excellent video however I’m surprised it didn’t quote the study (I can’t find the source) that revealed that the energy lost stopping a bicycle from 12mph is enough to propel the bicyclist over 300 feet. When quantified in this way people begin to understand why bicyclist don’t want to stop. Stopping at 20 stop signs consumes enough energy to ride a bicycle over a mile!

  Posted on April 15th, 2009 at 9:38 am
• EcoVelo » Blog Archive » Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop Video says:
  

  [...] Archive » Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop Collected by harwig 00 mins ago from http://www.ecovelo.info

  Posted on April 15th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
• Joe Keenan says:
  

  Alan,

  Do you know the purpose of the video? Was this created to show at that hearing in Oregon?

  Posted on April 15th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
• Alan says:
  

  @Joe

  Here’s the background info on BikePortland:

  Rolling Stops Animation

  Read down through the comments for info from the creator.

  Alan

  Posted on April 15th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
• Steve Fuller says:
  

  I’ll be honest, I don’t personally think that this is a good idea. I don’t like to stop at a stop signs, and if there is no one around, I will frequently do a rolling stop through them as a convenience to me. However, as someone who also drives, I prefer predictable behavior from all vehicles making use of a controlled intersection.

  Posted on April 15th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
• bikinginla says:
  

  Andy B, maybe this is the study you were referring to —

  http://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting/2009/04/the_physics_of_why_bicyclists.html

  Posted on April 15th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
• roy says:
  

  I ride in our small town of about 5000. I have had only one close call in 14,000+ miles of bicycling. I was on a through street when a bicyclists blew through a stop sign. A panic stop on my part saved us both. He just laughed and rode on.

  I believed that I would see him again and encourage him to at least yield at a stop sign. But, I did not see him for months. Then one day he caught up with me. It seems that he been recovering from being hit by an auto which ran a stop sign not just once but twice.

  He is living by the golden rule, “Do unto to others as you would have them do unto you.” He runs stop signs, so he got hit twice by stop sign runners.

  He still blows through stop signs. My guess is that he also drives that way. roy

  Posted on April 16th, 2009 at 9:30 am
• JaFO says:
  

  There’s a relatively easy (if expensive) way to get rid of the law : replace stop-signs with trafficlights …
  Are the laws going to change for those too ?

  Seems more like a law to pretend to care for cyclcists by pretending that stopping/starting at stop-signs is what keeps keeping people from cycling.

  Yes, a complete stop is pretty inefficient.
  However the classic bike itself is also pretty inefficient when compared to recumbent designs.
  If you really wanted to be efficient as a cyclist then you should also look at what kind of bike you are riding, what gear you’re in, the air in your tires, and a dozen other things that contribute to making you waste more energy than needed.

  Changing laws seems like overkill to me.

  Posted on April 16th, 2009 at 10:08 am
• Kay says:
  

  I’m all for saving the environment and for more bicycles on the road versus cars. However, I take umbrage at bad cyclists and bad cycling behavior. Many cyclists are already blowing through stop signs as it is and this new law/proposition will only encourage these bad practices and prove even more dangerous to not only cyclists but pedestrians and motor vehicle operators as well.

  Also, one can make the same argument that a motor-vehicle is also most efficient when in motion. Does this mean we should consider “Rolling Stops” for motor vehicles as well?

  Posted on April 22nd, 2009 at 5:09 pm
• Remington says:
  

  I think it’s all about visibility. You have MUCH more visibility while riding a bicycle than while driving a car. Drivers need to stop to have the time to evaluate the intersection. A biker inherently, has been looking and scanning the intersection before he/she ever rolled up. If you see a car coming, you stop, if you not, you roll. This is exactly how I treat stop signs. It’s not about blowing through a stop sign, it’s just about common sense. There’s no need to come to a complete stop if you can properly asses that the the traffic situation is clear while you’re coming up to the stop sign.

  Posted on April 23rd, 2009 at 8:16 am
• JaFO says:
  

  If you could see enough (of the intersection) then there would be no need for a stop-sign to begin with and it could easily have been replaced by something a little less restrictive or removed completely.

  And just because *you* can see something clearly that does not mean the other people sharing the road can regardless of the vehicle (be it car or bike or something else) they are driving.

  I reckon most accidents happen not because people did not see but because they ‘forgot’ or thought there was no danger.

  Changing a law is no substitute for crappy planning (of intersections).
  A ‘stop-sign’ effectively says : watch out … dangerous intersection .. make sure it is clear.

  Stopping out of habit is just as bad as doing a rolling stop ‘because you thought it was clear’.
  It’s the traffic that you did not see that is going to cause your next accident.

  Posted on April 23rd, 2009 at 1:44 pm