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> Do you live in an urban area so dense that you can't wait for cars to clear the intersection before you run out in front?

Every now and then I bump into someone like this who realizes that they're breaking the law and in the wrong, then tries to tell me I should still change my behaviour because they might kill me anyway.

I bet you do bump into them, by not taking common precautions to keep out of their way. But I was always trained to behave as though cars couldn't see me, not because they might decide to break the law but just because you never know.

It's striking to me that the difference for you between "my time is too important to stop" and "I was always trained to stop anyway" is just whether it's you or someone else that would get hurt from your actions.

No, I think stop signs are a horrible design flaw that we have to live with, and rolling stops are the least bad way to work around that urban design flaw.

It is asinine to force arbitrary stops at random intersections that have no time-of-day or traffic sensitivity (i.e. am I alone on the roads at 2AM, or are children walking to school at 8AM). Or to put them at intersections with clear cross visibility (what exactly is the stop for?). Or the 4-way stop sign mess.

It is totally reasonable to require full stops in the latter case, but silly in the former. Unfortunately, stop signs make no distinction between the two.

The only reason to fully stop at stop signs is actually the a pillar / b pillar blind spots, or obstructed view from the road. If you were hypothetically driving an open top car in an open neighborhood (or a motorcycle, bike, scooter, moped), there's no new "information" you'll gain by fully stopping rather than slowing down (where as if you have an A/B pillar blind spot, a full stop can give someone time to appear from behind it).

See also: "Stop Signs suck and we should get rid of them" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42oQN7fy_eM&t=1s

> - a complete stop takes more time than is needed to ensure the intersection is clear, which is a constant daily time drain and a reminder that you are following the rule because others will punish you and not because it's a good idea.

A minor inconvenience to increase safety. It's also a time drain that your speed is limited but you see clearly the benefits of that, you are just against completely stopping because of a perceived sense of lost efficiency with your time.

> Being lax on the rolling stops and just doing enforcement around those busy areas and high-speed stop sign ignorers seems like a nice equilibrium to keep the good effects and minimize the bad ones.

This is what creates complacency over time, a driver gets used on doing rolling stops because they judge the intersections they cross as not so busy, over time they keep pushing that and normalising it, until complacency sets in and one day they do a rolling stop at the wrong time/place. If one is strict about doing it as often as possible it just becomes second nature and not a conscious decision.

It's unfortunate that America needs to drive so much and educate its drivers so little, traffic in the USA is just a little bit better than places like Brazil, and absolutely nowhere close to the civilised traffic I experiece in Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Germany, etc.

Germany and its very car-centric society does a much better job on educating responsible drivers than the USA.

> .. a reminder that you are following the rule because others will punish you and not because it's a good idea.

It's a bad idea according to you. Do you have actual data that proves rolling stop provides sufficient utility that a stop sign is supposed to provide?

There does not exist a single society today or in history where every single member of the said society agrees with every single rule governing them. If you are only prevented from following your society's various rules because of 'fear of punishment' then you sir are a frustrated anti-social. It's not supposed to be because of "fear".

> time drain

Ridiculous. Traffic safety is more important that your illusory 'loss' of whatever handful of minutes per day.

What? Your time is not more important than my life. Pedestrian deaths are rapidly thanks to this kind of mentality.