• teft@piefed.social
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    6 days ago

    Why It’s Safer: It takes a lot of physical energy and time for a cyclist to regain momentum from a dead stop. By rolling through, the cyclist clears the intersection much faster. This reduces traffic backups and gets the cyclist out of the “danger zone” (the intersection) where most blind-spot collisions occur. The cyclist can see you just fine. He’s probably not suicidal so he’s probably not going to blow through the sign into your car. Imagine if every stop sign was a yield. You have to see what’s coming before continuing. Same on my bike. I don’t blow through a stop sign if i see a driver near or in the intersection that doesn’t give me eye contact because i’m not suicidal but i’ll roll through anything that I can merge into without causing disruption. But i live in a big city where the cars respect the motos and cyclists so your mileage may vary.

    • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
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      6 days ago

      I respect any other user of the road, as a human being I have no desire to injure another fellow human, and as someone who likes both bikes and motorcycles I’ve got good feelings for almost anybody on two wheels. I also strongly recognize the value of ‘third mode’ transportation in urban areas, and I want to see more of it- bikes, scooters, powered skateboards, etc. Every person on one of those things is a person not in a car. My point is not to virtue signal but but rather just to frame this so you understand where I’m coming from.

      One of the reasons we have traffic controls is to ensure that there is a commonly understood set of rules that apply to everybody. I’m not even talking about bikes I’m talking between multiple cars. There are plenty of bad drivers out there and those rules are necessary for responsibility.

      You say you know the car is coming and I believe you, because you sound like an intelligent person. However I have encountered plenty of bikers that are absolutely doing reckless things with no regard in for the vehicles around them. And perhaps this is why my experience is different than yours. But I have seen a number of bikers blast through stop signs and there is an obvious car coming and said car has to slam on the brakes.

      So for me with my experience, the place where my mind immediately goes is ‘are we creating a situation where bikers can ignore the rules but the car driver will still get in trouble for hitting them?’