Should California allow bicyclists to roll through stop signs?

[TexasTowelie]

Here’s a counterintuitive proposal currently circulating at the Capitol: Make California roads safer for bicyclists by allowing them to yield at stop signs, rather than coming to a complete stop, if there is no oncoming traffic.

Assemblyman Jay Obernolte is prepared for your skepticism.

“Most people that I pitch the bill to, their first reaction is, ‘Oh my god, that’s a terrible idea. Someone’s going to get killed,’ ” the Big Bear Lake Republican said. But the results of a natural three-decade experiment have demonstrated otherwise, he added. “There is no less expensive and more effective way of increasing bicycle safety in California than to reform the laws for stopping.”

Assembly Bill 1103, which Obernolte is carrying with Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, is based on a law adopted by Idaho in 1982. Though no other states have yet followed suit, the policy remains popular there, and a 2010 study by a UC Berkeley researcher concluded that its impacts had been positive.

The study found that bicycle injuries in Idaho declined by 14.5 percent the year after the law took effect, and there was no evidence of an increase over time. Compared to Sacramento and Bakersfield, two California cities the researcher deemed comparable, Boise had at least 30 percent fewer injuries per bicycle commuter and no regular fatalities.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/article147952354.html

[petronius]

1. This column, or one like it, ran recently in my local paper and it was funny to see

how all the comments were 'tribal' reactions from drivers--it's not faaaiiiir, cyclists already get away with too much, 'they' shouldn't be rewarded for already breaking the law, etc--along with irrelevant anecdotes about annoying cyclists. Plus, of course, some incomprehensible drivel from the local RWers, and unsupported claims that it would be just too confusing. (Seriously? If Idahoans can figure it out, I'm pretty sure we can too.)

Nobody seemed to even notice that the only available empirical data supports the law.

Seems like a good idea to me...

[Brother Buzz]

2. Bill to Allow Cyclists to Roll Through Stop Signs Fails

Bill to Allow Cyclists to Roll Through Stop Signs Fails

By Eli Wirtschafter
MAY 9, 2017

A proposal to allow bikes to roll through intersections has come to a skidding stop — for now.

AB 1103 would have let bicyclists treat stop signs like yield signs. On Monday, the measure stalled in an Assembly committee.

An unlikely duo brought the legislation: San Francisco Democrat Phil Ting and Republican Jay Obernolte, whose district lies in the Mojave Desert.

They are united by a belief that bicyclists would be safer if the law allowed what so many cyclists already do — roll through stop signs.

<more>

https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/05/09/bill-to-allow-cyclists-to-roll-through-stop-signs-fails/