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Comment by jay_kyburz | Hacker News Reader

I don't know about the US, but a stop sign here in Australia means complete stop. If you fail to fully stop in your driving test it's an instant fail. If you fail to fully stop and there is an accident, you will be at fault.

In Australia, bikes are required to follow the same rules as cars when on the road.

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In some US states rolling stops for bikes have been legalized as "Idaho stops".

I have used a bike as my primary transportation for 15 years. The majority of rides are in traffic - there's very little dedicated bike infrastructure (painted sharrows or gutters don't count)

Trust me when I say, in the US, an intersection is the most dangerous place to be. You are a sitting duck if you aren't moving when clear.

A lot of drivers straight up don't pay attention at lights, due to phones or spacing out, and don't give you space when coming up behind you. Mix in right-on-reds, unprotected left turns, and the general drivers failure to negotiate turns - if it's clear I'm going. It's also safer for me to stay at a relatively consistent speed for predictable passing than accelerating in mixed traffic with very different acceleration curves.

Yeah, and it's generally bad for bikes. Stop signs are designed for cars - cyclists are approaching an intersection much slower, so have way more time to look, and can much more easily see around them than a driver (no pillars or vehicle parts around them blocking visibility), so most of the time are able to make a better decision about whether they need to stop or not than cars.

At the same time, it takes a cyclist far longer to start off from being stopped, so every time they stop when they didn't really need to, it puts them in a vulnerable position for much longer time than was necessary. So apparently it turns out a lot safer to let cyclists slow at stop signs but not have to fully stop if it's safe to continue.

In the US, the letter of the law is that cyclists must make a full stop, yes. But cycling activists often argue that this is a law that needs changing, and would help get more casual riders on bikes. Additionally, most bike riders in cities are on the lower income side; this would reduce how much they're cited for what is fairly accepted behavior.

Stop signs here in Australia, like most of the world, are only placed where the visibility actually makes it necessary to come to a stop. They're far more common over in the US. Pick any random intersection, it probably has a stop sign or four.

If all the give way signs on my commute were replaced with stop signs, I'd sure feel like rolling through them.

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