A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
1. Be Civil
You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.
2. No hate speech
Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.
3. Don't harass people
Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.
4. Stay on topic
This community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.
5. No reposts
Do not repost content that has already been posted in this community.
Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.
In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
As a non-USAian I'm a little confused. Do you guys have intersections where BOTH roads get a stop sign? I've only ever seen intersections where one road is the default right of way, and the intersecting road has to stop. Both roads stopping seems really confusing.
We have one of these in Wellington NZ. It's the final testing point on your practical driver's licence test and it's only about 20 metres from the testing station. There's no right answer about who gives way but is designed to see how safely you manage a strange situation. However, they are public roads and non-testees have to negotiate it as well. Surprisingly few problems, though.
Do you not have a right-hand rule kind of thing, where people on your right get priority if the crossing roads are equal?
Treat them like roundabouts.
@HereIAm Oh, yes, and that's what they're mainly looking for you knowing but, if 4 cars arrive at each stop sign simultaneously, no single one of them has absolute right of way. It's a judgement and patience test.
At a four way stop, the vehicle that stops first has right of way. If all vehicles stop at the same time. It's the one going straight through the intersection. Then the one that is the rightmost.
Never in a million years could understand why somebody in a vehicle, who has but to move their foot a half centimeter in order to accelerate, feels the need to be ahead of all the cyclists and make sure all the rules are obeyed perfectly.
Really, who gets a fuck if some dude on a bike saves a half second so he doesn't have to burn off legs getting up to speed again.
For fuck sakes, I both drive and I cycle, and I've never understood.
I admit to being impatient as a driver sometimes... because driving isn't very pleasant and I want it to be over.
This is something I have been also wondering for ages and on top of that they sit in a cabinet shielded from elements in a stable temperature.
Yet they need to speed up to make the turn 0,5 seconds before the bike passes the crossing while almost killing the bicyclist in the process.
Insane.
Have you tried being a piece of shit?
Does throwing a glass bottle at a car's windshield when they intentionally tried to run me off the road when I was blading, count as an asshole?
What about when a car driver threw a glass bottle at me for riding a bicycle on the other side of the road to them?
No
Then no.
What he did was fucking horrible, but please explain to me why it should be okay for a bicycle to not use the stop sign?
Always told my kids that the cemetery is full of people with right away.
About 15% of the US population lives in states with Idaho Stop laws, where bicyclists are allowed to treat stop signs as yield signs, and just under half of those also allow them to treat red lights as stop-then-yield signs. This has provided hard data indicating such a practice is measurably safer for cyclists, I believe at least partially because a disproportinate amount of collisions involving them happen in intersections and not needing to slow down for them means cyclists spend less time in those high danger zones. Given how much advice I was given as a driver boiled down to "drive safely, even if that means breaking the law" (especially given in regards to speed limits), I think it is perfectly justified for a biker to do the same, and act in the safer manner even if the laws says to do something else.
Traffic laws will not keep you safe. The legal system always has and always will always have this problem because there's a constant tussle between not throwing people who didn't do all that much in jail, and providing strong (as in enforceable) incentives to not do bad things.
The main point is that, in this case at least, it is measurably safer for cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs even when that isn't what the law says.
A lot of states (can't speak for the rules in Europe) have laws that allow cyclists to treat stop signs as yields. This is supposed to be safer for cyclists. It also allows cyclists to be more energy efficient and faster, because accelerating is the hardest part of cycling and it takes a long time compared to coasting through an intersection.
The video below does a good job giving a brief overview of why this change was made.
Personally, I still look both ways before going through a stop sign, and, if I see vehicles, I'll slow down enough so that I can react if needed. Check your local laws to see how cyclists should treat stop signs.
Some places stop signs are legally optional for bikes.
I still do them, because cars always have the right of way according to the laws of physics.
I used to bike everywhere all the time in a city and I got out in the road, like I was supposed to, and signaled with my arms like a boy scout and followed the law for stop signs and lights, and people were still abusive shit assholes towards me. I put a baby seat with a doll and helmet on the back of my bike and I had a lot less bullshit happen, but people still ran me off the road, rolled coal in my face, screamed and honked at me, everything. To put it simply. A person on a bike is trying to survive, a person in a car is driving. the person trying to survive is less attentive to the strict rules of the road and more alert to when a car or truck is going to try and kill them and how to quickly avoid that. I personally liked to put a ballard tree, or another car between me and the vehicle trying to kill me as a go to solution, this usually requires being close to the side of the road. sometimes I'd rather be closer to a tree or parked cars than correctly obeying signs. go figure.
Because most of the infrastructure it meant to enable cars, the ultimate death machines. It is infra necessitated by and built for them. Look at any of the numerous yt-vids by the channel "bicycle dutch" from mayor dutch cities during rush hour to get an idea of what traffic without cars looks like - no stop signs, no lights, no nothing. Also, moderate starting and stopping increases energy demand per cycled stretch by up to 25%, compared to basically 0 for the automatic driving fatass in the pickup.
Yeah, but in this case there was a stop sign. Being alive and safe is better then being dead and "saving energy".
In a car centric city, bikes should always be on the look out for cars that may not follow the rules and do whatever they can to ensure they stay safe. Sure it's not fair, but dying to make a point is just stupid.
Exactly told my kids never trust that right away and though not the law always, always give the car the right of way. Because cars no matter what can KILL YOU! And do every fucking day.
As a bicyclists myself I treat it as if driving a car. Stop at stop signs and damn sure at red lights. But I seen bicycles blow through them too.
That's literally assault: Threatening to do harm to another person. I don't know why we're censoring this person's username, this should be getting forwarded to law enforcement.
When I drive I'm aware that I'm in the killing machine which means to me that if a bike comes to an intersection and doesn't look like they're stopping I consider them having the right of way no matter the situation.
I make space for mopeds and give them also extra care if they're doing something dumb just because in a collision I'm not the one getting injured. For example in a congested roundabout I know they're probably going to filter through and pass in front of my car so I just make space so that it can be done safely.
Safe and predictable.
Ha, look at this loser with their empathy!
(/s if it wasn't clear)
I treat cyclists and pedestrians the same, I give them priority in most situations. I also know that stop signs and red lights kill cyclists so I don't really expect them to do them, I actually prefer if they just go through and disengage the intersection asap.
Yeah, no explain this to carbrained people an example of a tank driving through an intersection at full speed sounds nuts but in reality it's not that different from cars vs bikes/peds.