France is experimenting with allowing bicyclists to treat red lights and stop signs as if they are ‘yield’ signs, which has been adopted in other European countries, like Germany, Belgium, and Sweden.
The rationale? Physics:
Why Bicyclists Blow Through Stop Signs: It’s Physics - Lloyd Alter via Treehugger
Adrian Duyzer explains in Raise the Hammer: that “An ‘Idaho stop’ is so-called because of a 1982 law passed in Idaho that permits, in essence, cyclists to treat stop signs like yield signs.” The law requires cyclists “to slow down to a reasonable speed and, if required for safety, stop when they come to a stop sign” and “yield the right-of-way to any vehicle in the intersection or approaching on another highway.” That seems reasonable, and frankly, that is what I and most other responsible cyclists do. There is a reason: Physics. Duyzer points to an article by Professor of Physics Joel Fajans at the University of California, Berkeley, and Melanie Curry of Access, titled Why Cyclists Hate Stop Signs. They write:
Take a simple stop sign. For a car driver, a stop sign is a minor inconvenience, merely requiring the driver to shift his foot from gas pedal to brake, perhaps change gears, and, of course, slow down. These annoyances may induce drivers to choose faster routes without stop signs, leaving the stop-signed roads emptier for cyclists. Consequently streets with many stop signs are safer for bicycle riders because they have less traffic. However, a route lined with stop signs is not necessarily desirable for cyclists. While car drivers simply sigh at the delay, bicyclists have a whole lot more at stake when they reach a stop sign.
Bicyclists can work only so hard. The average commuting rider is unlikely to produce more than 100 watts of propulsion power, or about what it takes to power a reading lamp. At 100 watts, the average cyclist can travel about 12.5 miles per hour on the level…. Even if a commuter cyclist could produce more than a 100 watts, she is unlikely to do so because this would force her to sweat heavily, which is a problem for any cyclist without a place to shower at work. With only 100 watts’ worth (compared to 100,000 watts generated by a 150-horsepower car engine), bicyclists must husband their power. Accelerating from stops is strenuous, particularly since most cyclists feel a compulsion to regain their former speed quickly. They also have to pedal hard to get the bike moving forward fast enough to avoid falling down while rapidly upshifting to get back up to speed.
For example, on a street with a stop sign every 300 feet, calculations predict that the average speed of a 150-pound rider putting out 100 watts of power will diminish by about forty percent. If the bicyclist wants to maintain her average speed of 12.5 mph while still coming to a complete stop at each sign, she has to increase her output power to almost 500 watts. This is well beyond the ability of all but the most fit cyclists.
At core is the basic question: safety. If bicyclists can determine that breezing through a stop sign or a red light can be done safely, they should be able to do so, and the laws should be modified to make it legal. Of course, drivers of motor vehicles need to understand what is motivating this change in traffic regulations, so we can avoid the knee-jerk response of ‘everyone should follow the same traffic rules’.
We know that cabs need to pull over and block traffic to allow their fares to get in and out, and so do school buses, while large trucks need to break the rules about traffic lanes to make turns. The rules are plastic, and should be interpreted for the benefit of the society as a whole. More importantly, the safety and street affordances of pedestrians and bicyclists — those not operating motor vehicles — should be of greater importance than those of motor vehicles, since motor vehicles have the greater capacity to harm others and to power their way out of stopping.
