I used to think this way until my city started installing video cameras at the intersections.
I was happily making my way to work on day and, as usual, I slow to an “almost stop”. Three days later I received in the mail a nice traffic citation for $125. I thought to myself “Self, there must be some mistake.” So I called to dispute the ticket, as instructed on the back of the ticket. Within one hour I was able to receive in my email inbox a nice .MPG video from the municipal court office. I watched the video and was amazed at the clarity. Not only could you clearly make out my license plate in the video, but you could also see my facial expression and tell it was me. I had indeed performed a “rolling stop” and fully deserved the ticket.
Not just that - intersections served by a roundabout in the UK (and thus designed to keep traffic moving) typically are served in the United States by four-way stop signs or other signage - designed to grind traffic to a halt.
Until those of us in North America are blessed with roundabouts or shared space concepts, how about we all try to drive using the same traffic laws?
Thought of another one - yes, you are actually supposed to stop before you drive over a sidewalk (coming out of a back alley or a parking lot, for example). Can anyone guess why? If you said there are a multitude of different types of pedestrians on the sidewalk who don’t want to either get crushed under your car or walk into the street around it, you’d be right.
Aaagh, people who don’t take driving seriously enough to learn to do it properly drive me nuts. It’s the most dangerous thing most of us will do in our entire lives, and we treat it like it’s no big deal at all.
Not just the US, but Canada too. Four-way stop signs are at every intersection in certain parts of Toronto, for example. It’s part of a traffic-calming scheme apparently; you simply cannot get going without stopping at every intersection. Having seen how roundabouts work in the UK and Australia, I think they’re a great improvement on how traffic flows, but you’ll never convince the people who live in the neighbourhoods like this who want to make it more inconvenient for cars, not less.
I think I can find about a zillion threads around here about how all people who ride bikes never stop at stop signs or red lights, and how only car drivers stop at them.
I think I will bookmark this thread for the next time somebody brings that one up.
:rolleyes:
Having been hit by a car turning right, while I was in a crosswalk crossing with a walk signal. A hearty fuck you to those of you that don’t stop for a stop sign or red light, or don’t bother to look to see if the crosswalk is occupied.
I was complaining about people who roll through stop signs/stop lights where it appears that they are going to hit you as you legally drive through an intersection. Then they brake at the last second as you are trying to second guess as to whether or not they see you. About two years ago, I veered into oncoming traffic as some girl blew straight through the red light and turned right into me.
Then someone pointed out that the modus operandi of some drivers is to just blow through every stop sign when turning right and then slam on the brakes if they happen to notice a car coming. This all makes sense now and it pisses me off even more. Fucking morons.
Wow, I didn’t realize there were so many stop sign strategies.
Me, I stop at almost all of them, but only because I want to keep my driving record littered with speeding tickets and only speeding tickets. In other words, I’m paranoid about getting a ticket for something so stupid.
But I think it’s important to understand the point of view that automatically stopping at all stop signs doesn’t make you safe. Regardless of whether you stop or roll through, you still need to make sure that:
a) There aren’t any cars that you’re gonna hit
b) There aren’t any pedestrians that you’re gonna hit
c) You’re telegraphing your intentions properly to other drivers
Ostensibly, since you have to do all of those things anyway, stopped or not, and since you’re just as perfectly capable of determining those things at 5 or 10 mph as you are at a complete stop, I see no reason to be such a rule nazi about it. The people who have issues have issues with drivers not doing one of those three things, and there’s no guarantee that coming to a complete stop will make them any better at being aware of their surroundings. So I think the rant should be about inattentive driving, not about stop sign rolling.
I’ve been rolling through stop signs for over 20 years with out incident or even comingt close to one. (that I can recall off the top of my head)
What pisses me off about some folks is that they’ll roll completely past the stop sign with the nose of their car sticking six inches out in the lane of oncoming traffic THEN STOP!
I agree with the OP in a general sense, but…
Although I try to stop in similar (international road rules mean the circumstances don’t translate exactly) circumstances, sometimes I don’t. I make no apology for this, either. Sydney drivers are the worst in the world (just like NYC drivers, London drivers, LA drivers, Buffalo drivers, Buttfuck, IL drivers, etc - just trawl the SDMB for cites). There are times where, if I bring my vehicle to a complete stand in accordance with the letter of the traffic code, I strongly risk being rear-ended.
I’ve only had one accident in twenty years of driving. I’ve never had a ticket. And I drive a lot. The one accident was my being rear-ended by a delivery van, twenty years ago. At the time, I thought I’d be a shoe-in for being not at fault. But the other guy made up some bullshit, and the cops decided they could come to no decision, and we both had to pay for our respective damage. So, I try to be a defensive city driver, but I’ve learned the hard way, and being in the right in an accident isn’t necessarily worth the time and expense of an accident.
I’m driving in the rain, a speeding car full of eighteen year-olds cuts in behind me from the other lane just as the light flips yellow. I should (legally) stop at the light. But I don’t. I’m a safe driver, but I’m not a sillly one either. I look out for myself. So far, I’ve avoided fines with this, but even if I have to pay one or two over the rest of my driving career, it’d probably be worth it.
Safe driving doesn’t automatically equate to following the rule book 100%.
This is part of what makes me so mad about stop sign and red light rollers; I DO NOT WANT to have to choose between driving safely and obeying the traffic rules (and not paying $230 tickets). I’ve worked this over in my head over and over, and the bottom line I’ve come out with is my driving is between me and the Calgary police - they ticket stop sign rollers, so I come to a full stop. If I get rear-ended doing this, the car behind me will be 100% at fault, and they will pay my insurance deductible.
It’s a whole 'nother rant about a city with such spotty enforcement that they put drivers in a position where no one is obeying the rules except the odd person, and they still ticket people (heavily) for disobeying those rules if you happen to be one of the unlucky ones who gets caught (and I’m one of those people). If everyone is rolling through stop signs and red lights, and it isn’t dangerous, relax the rules. If it is dangerous, enforce the goddamn rules so people get it through their thick heads that they have to do this.
So there I am walking, and suddenly from behind I am lifted up and doing a back flip over the hood of a Buick. I rolled to my left and came off the hood near the left front tire.
The Bitch driving finally stopped when I was about even with her door.
I don’t think I have ever been so pissed as I was that evening.
I once ended up on the hood of a car that was less…Buick-y. Left a nice crease. I got off the hood, glanced at the crease, and told the driver something nasty. I was pretty much about to goon my way when the driver saw the damage and got bitchy at me. I asked him if he wanted to call the police , he just retorted with a ‘FUCK YOU!’ and blasted his horn all the way down the block.
Since you’re back in the thread I’ll ask you again – can you support your assertion that having stop signs, signals, and speed limits is* far more dangerous* than not having them?
Since Mr. Moto hasn’t come back, I’ll chip in a bit. I highly recommend Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us). Among other great info, it has a couple chapters about how people interact with signs and lights and such. The takeaway is that there is a very real effect where people drive based on those instead of actually paying attention to what’s going on around them. In many situations, removing all the signs and lights leads to areas that are safer, because drivers are forced to pay attention. Oh yes, and traffic flows better.
There is a great scene where the author is looking at an extremely busy roundabout with the engineer/architect of it, who has taken away all signs. The engineer turns around, and walks backwards with his eyes closed through the traffic whirling around him, talking to the author the whole time. The author is scared witless, but the engineer is fully confident that the drivers will avoid him. He’s never touched.
That’s not to say this applies everywhere, but it’s the kind of cool counter-intuitive result that readers of SDMB seem to love.
