environmental effects of stop signs

Can anyone direct me to research on the environmental effects (atmospheric, etc.) of stop signs? If I come to a complete stop at a stop sign, it obviously takes more gas to get back up to 25 mph than if I had rolled through it at 10, 5, 2, or even 1 mph. Here in southern California we need all the help we can get reducing our atmospheric pollution, and if replacing some stop signs with yield signs would help (wherever it’s safe to do so), this would seem like an obvious contribution.

My back-of-the-envelope estimate is based on a guess that my mpg would drop from 20 to 1 if all I did was accelerate up to 5 mph, brake to a stop, and repeat ad nauseam. And since I could probably do that 100 times in a 1 mile stretch of road, I would have “wasted” nearly a full gallon of gas with all those stops and starts (ignoring the .05 gallon it would have taken to travel that same mile without stopping). While my saving one one-hundredth of a gallon by rolling a single stop sign seems trivial, when you multiply it by the 5500 vehicles passing through that intersection each day, the atmospheric effects would be significant. (Might as well plunk down a 55-gallon drum of unleaded in the middle of the intersection and set it on fire…)

And that’s just the acceleration side of the equation. When you toss in the brake pads, rubber tire dust, etc., it seems like we should replace every one that’s not at a crosswalk with a yellow yield sign…

Seems like it’d be a better idea to cut down on the number of CARS, not the number of stop signs.

But kumler is only driving one at a time anyway.

You’d need to add back in the costs of the additional wrecks.

Some of us were discussing a good potential science project for a school. (In my school science classes, we didn’t discuss to my memory issues of publication and controversy, or bad science.)

Observations: kids at stop-sign intersectings, tallying numbers of cars (possibly differentiate 3 classes of weight of vehicles), in spec’d time. Tally how many come to full stop. Estimates of speed of non-stopping a difficult observation; possibly a radar unit could be borrowed, or the weakness of this observation would have to be acknowledged.

Research from prior literature: Formula, amount of gas to bring each 1000 pounds of vehicle back up to speed from stop. Chart, up-to-speed from 5 mph, 10 mph, to 35 mph. If speed observations not precise, do not calculate totals.

Research from prior literature: Formula, amount of CO2 and other gasses produced per gallon of gas.

Calculation: gas used and pollution produced per intersection.
Optional further calculation, ditto per comparable blind intersection (no stopsigns, no visibility, slow to 15 mph).

Acknowledge: adjustments for cars avoiding street with stopsigns, probably incalculable by the kids; they would need to acknowledge issue in the report. Also acknowledge other issues as noted.

Publication: in the Letters column of the local newspaper. (It wouldn’t hurt to inform the Editor in advance, who might write an editorial to draw further attention.)

Subsequent input: subsequent letters received by newspaper; preferable to ask newsp. to forward all to the class, not just the ones published.

Further class learning: contrasting statement from science (measurements & calculations), vs authority (you kids don’t know anything!), vs bogus statements (sound scientific or real, but have no basis…no cite, sound familiar?) vs dumbth (responder responds to something kids did not say). Probably preferable to leave out of the report any recommendations as to changes to be made, leave that to the audience.

The English seem to do quite well with roundabouts, requiring a stop only if there is traffic in the roundabout.