<story><title>Idaho Stop</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>SamBam</author><text>This seems designed to start a bicycle argument.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll go ahead and present the cyclist&amp;#x27;s view, and try not to get flamed:&lt;p&gt;A cyclist&amp;#x27;s head is much closer to the end of their vehicle, and they have a much more unobstructed view around them. By the time they are a few feet from the stop sign, they can already see much further down the street than a driver in a car could. This means it&amp;#x27;s easier to assess safety and make a snap decision to keep going. Coming to a complete stop doesn&amp;#x27;t really add any more safety.&lt;p&gt;Further, while accidents that harm pedestrians do certainly happen, and shouldn&amp;#x27;t be minimized, the vast majority of the time the biggest danger to a cyclist is themselves. Cars kill people every day, so it is reasonable that they be held to a higher standard. If you started out with a bicycle-only intersection with a yield sign, and then started allowing cars through, wouldn&amp;#x27;t you want to increase the safety of that intersection by requiring a stop?&lt;p&gt;As a final thought, most red lights in America could probably be stop signs or yield signs. The UK has been working towards this (with roundabouts too) and in general roads are safer when you require drivers to think and make decisions. I think much of car drivers&amp;#x27; anger towards cyclists treating red lights as stop signs is not so much the safety aspect as a feeling of unfairness that &lt;i&gt;they&lt;/i&gt; are stuck at the light while the cyclist checks the road and then bikes through.</text></comment>
<story><title>Idaho Stop</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>eckmLJE</author><text>In my experience, most people don&amp;#x27;t have a great understanding of what keeps cyclists safe in mixed traffic (i.e. not within a protected lane), and how opposed those things often are to the law. As a former professional urban cyclist, I constantly broke the law to keep myself safe, while keeping my first priority never to endanger pedestrians or other cyclists. A kind of Three Laws where the unarmored travelers come first, then myself, then the folks in big steel boxes.&lt;p&gt;Cyclists need a different set of laws on the road for everyone&amp;#x27;s benefit. But people have become so inured to the constant threat and frequent (and often fatal) harm of motor vehicles, that they fixate on and exaggerate the threat of cyclists, and illogically insist that they need to follow the same rules of the road as cars.&lt;p&gt;Cyclists should follow rules of the road -- special rules created for a special vehicle.</text></comment>