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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Bicycles
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Cars and bicycles share the same travel surface. In order to interact safely, they need to follow the same rules. Using your example, semis still need to follow nearly all the same rules as cars. There is a base ruleset for everyone who uses a roadway (including, one must come to a complete stop at a traffic control device that directs them to do so), and only specific modifications to certain rules for additional safety for vehicles in certain classes.
Here in Saskatchewan, bicycles fall under the Traffic Safety Act if they are on public roadways. That means they can be ticketed for exceeding speed limits or disobeying traffic control devices.
If different modes interact on the same travelway, they must share the same set of rules. If they don't, you get conflicts, which means collision between vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles, and other wheeled modes of travel.
In my example the more dangerous vehicle (semi) has more restrictive rules. Should the less dangerous vehicle (bicycle) not have less restrictive rules? I'm not talking about no rules at all, but treating stop signs as a yield sign for a bike makes sense considering the shorter stopping time, slower speeds, and wider perspective (no parts of the car to potentially block vision) on bikes.
The point of stop signs is so that 1000+ kg vehicle doesn't interact with traffic, usually from a side street onto a main street, without looking first. Or to ensure there is a known pattern at a 3 or 4 way stop. You need this when the average stopping distance for a car traveling 50 kph is 35 m in dry conditions. You don't need the same safety measures with bikes because of the physics involved with a smaller, slower, faster stopping, etc bike.
Also, all of this is irrelevant to the point if we had proper bike infrastructure in cities there wouldn't be a shared road space, or not nearly as much. The infrastructure is designed with cars and truck in mind, as are the rules. If we had more separation between the two methods of travel you would have fewer issues.
I agree, proper bike infrastructure would solve much of this issue. With that, many drivers treat stop signs as yield anyway.
I noticed when driving on a trip in Europe (Norway and Scotland) that many of the intersections where there would typically be a stop sign in North America had only a yield sign. It's quite simple; give way to oncoming traffic and proceed when safe. Unfortunately, many North Americans think yield means 'assume I'm going to proceed into this intersection and only brake if I have to while I'm rolling through the crosswalk'.
It mainly comes down to what other members of the travelway expect you to do. If you are predictable, your chances of conflicting with others is diminished. Unfortunately, unless you can convince lawmakers to make the change, a stop sign is going to mean come to a complete stop, which is also what others are expecting you to do.
Seems OK to me. The only issue would be if a cyclist not following the road rules causes a car or truck to take evasive action and this causes an accident with another vehicle.
Defos. Doesn't matter what you're driving, be predictable and you won't get hurt.
Semi's cause almost all fatal road accidents. I think a bigger blanket would only cause more issues
Do you have a source for that? The NHTSA 2019 data claims only 11% of fatal crashes involved large trucks, whereas 62% involved passenger vehicles.