It's like rolling stops at stop signs, a majority of people do it, it's socially accepted! Could we use technology to prevent it? Yes. Should we? I'd hope not.
Do you know how many times I've almost been hit by a car doing a rolling stop while running? We should absolutely use technology to prevent this.
I'm honestly not convinced by this line of reasoning at all. Most laws exist for a reason and should be followed. Or if they're bad laws, they should be changed.
The pressure on the law to break it -- compared to stop lights, where almost no one does -- does reveal that there is something bad about the law. The positive effects are:
- encourage turn taking
- help pedestrians in the 1% of urban areas where there actually are any
- bright line rule that's easy for police to enforce
- keep people from getting complacent about cross traffic
The negative effects are
- a complete stop takes more time than is needed to ensure the intersection is clear, which is a constant daily time drain and a reminder that you are following the rule because others will punish you and not because it's a good idea.
Being lax on the rolling stops and just doing enforcement around those busy areas and high-speed stop sign ignorers seems like a nice equilibrium to keep the good effects and minimize the bad ones. Maybe nicer than we could achieve by letting the kind of people who participate in politics revisit the issue.
Do you live in an urban area so dense that you can't wait for cars to clear the intersection before you run out in front?
> Do you live in an urban area so dense that you can't wait for cars to clear the intersection before you run out in front?
Every now and then I bump into someone like this who realizes that they're breaking the law and in the wrong, then tries to tell me I should still change my behaviour because they might kill me anyway.
I bet you do bump into them, by not taking common precautions to keep out of their way. But I was always trained to behave as though cars couldn't see me, not because they might decide to break the law but just because you never know.
It's striking to me that the difference for you between "my time is too important to stop" and "I was always trained to stop anyway" is just whether it's you or someone else that would get hurt from your actions.
No, I think stop signs are a horrible design flaw that we have to live with, and rolling stops are the least bad way to work around that urban design flaw.
It is asinine to force arbitrary stops at random intersections that have no time-of-day or traffic sensitivity (i.e. am I alone on the roads at 2AM, or are children walking to school at 8AM). Or to put them at intersections with clear cross visibility (what exactly is the stop for?). Or the 4-way stop sign mess.
It is totally reasonable to require full stops in the latter case, but silly in the former. Unfortunately, stop signs make no distinction between the two.
The only reason to fully stop at stop signs is actually the a pillar / b pillar blind spots, or obstructed view from the road. If you were hypothetically driving an open top car in an open neighborhood (or a motorcycle, bike, scooter, moped), there's no new "information" you'll gain by fully stopping rather than slowing down (where as if you have an A/B pillar blind spot, a full stop can give someone time to appear from behind it).
> - a complete stop takes more time than is needed to ensure the intersection is clear, which is a constant daily time drain and a reminder that you are following the rule because others will punish you and not because it's a good idea.
A minor inconvenience to increase safety. It's also a time drain that your speed is limited but you see clearly the benefits of that, you are just against completely stopping because of a perceived sense of lost efficiency with your time.
> Being lax on the rolling stops and just doing enforcement around those busy areas and high-speed stop sign ignorers seems like a nice equilibrium to keep the good effects and minimize the bad ones.
This is what creates complacency over time, a driver gets used on doing rolling stops because they judge the intersections they cross as not so busy, over time they keep pushing that and normalising it, until complacency sets in and one day they do a rolling stop at the wrong time/place. If one is strict about doing it as often as possible it just becomes second nature and not a conscious decision.
It's unfortunate that America needs to drive so much and educate its drivers so little, traffic in the USA is just a little bit better than places like Brazil, and absolutely nowhere close to the civilised traffic I experiece in Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Germany, etc.
Germany and its very car-centric society does a much better job on educating responsible drivers than the USA.
> .. a reminder that you are following the rule because others will punish you and not because it's a good idea.
It's a bad idea according to you. Do you have actual data that proves rolling stop provides sufficient utility that a stop sign is supposed to provide?
There does not exist a single society today or in history where every single member of the said society agrees with every single rule governing them. If you are only prevented from following your society's various rules because of 'fear of punishment' then you sir are a frustrated anti-social. It's not supposed to be because of "fear".
> time drain
Ridiculous. Traffic safety is more important that your illusory 'loss' of whatever handful of minutes per day.
Near is a high visibility T junction with 3 stop signs. A couple of blocks down the smaller street (off the main street) is a school, and the junction is where some kids cross. There is ALWAYS a crossing guard with a giant hand held stop sign and reflective vest that will walk out into the junction so the kids can cross. This happens roughly 4 hours a day (2 in morning, 2 in mid afternoon) for, usually, 5 days a week, about ~9 months a year.
There is absolutely no reason what so ever to even stop at the stop sign during the __off hours__ when on the main road with the right-a-way. It shouldn't even be there if not for school hours. There are 2 main 4-way crossings a few streets to either side of the main junction for anyone wanting to cross at a cross walk in a sleepy suburb on the outer edge of a metro area. A rolling stop is more than generous at that time.
My experience of driving in the US is that stop signs are used a lot, so people get numb and treat them as Give Way/Yield signs (where you don't need to come to a dead stop, but must give way to any oncoming traffic).
In the UK, Stop signs are only used when there is limited visibility/blind corners, so if you see one, you know that you definitely need to stop. Once you step and creep forward, you'll realise why a stop sign was needed.
> Do you know how many times I've almost been hit by a car doing a rolling stop while running? We should absolutely use technology to prevent this.
Technology that enforces full stops at every stop sign won't be smarter than human drivers. It won't know if you're not stopping because you need to get away from a tornado/serial killer/car accident/literally any other hazard, or you need to rush through in order to get a hospital/save a life/keep your bus above a certain speed or else it will explode/etc.
Brain-dead enforcement of any rule is a disaster waiting to happen. Life is complicated and full of edge cases. People should be allowed to use their brains when it comes to operating cars just like they should be punished when they fail to. Don't be so quick to give up everyone's freedom just so that you can feel a little more safe when jogging.
It's hard to drive in the US without rolling at stop sign because they are everywhere. EU and the rest of the world use two different signs: yield and stop. Yield tells that you need to give way but can go without stopping if it is safe and stop tells you must stop (used rarely, mostly in places with poor view).
IMHO yield sign is a better solution then lax enforcement of stop signs. And all-way stop can be replaced by roundabouts and mini roundabouts (I'm not a fan of high traffic multi-lane roundabouts but in places with low traffic, where all-way stops usually are used they work great).
Then why they are so rare on the road compare to stop signs? I haven’t seen stats but my impression that in EU/UK there are at least 10x more yield signs than stop signs.
Because the US is obsessed with 3 and 4 way stops whenever they can (as opposed to a roundabout).
It's trivial to make a roundabout have yield signs. Some roads here are like that, where every 4-way intersection of stop signs is now a yield + roundabout. You can theoretically get all the way through without stopping.
But you can't have yields at a 4-way stop. Connecting 2 perpendicular roads at low speed is an incredibly common problem - the US chooses to do it in a stupid way.
I'm not convinced that coming to a complete stop is any safer than just slowing to 2-3 mph before continuing.
The real danger is from proceeding without looking around, but there's no way to enforce looking around. Coming to a complete stop doesn't change it. Someone who's going to proceed without giving proper attention is going to do so whether or not they come to a complete stop.
Why do people roll through stop signs? Complaints about acceleration and uselessness.
I easily see two fixes for acceleration. Make stopping and starting less jarring on occupants and reduce the need for the driver to switch from gas to brake pedals.
Uselessness can be resolved by a number of ways, make the area around the stop more open for better visibility, but we can definitely use technology to prevent people from rolling through stop signs. Set up sensors so that only one roadway has an active stop sign, when the sensors detect a single vehicle the stop sign on their way can be disabled. When the sensors detect intersecting vehicles both stop signs are activated.
Because coming to full and complete stop at a four way intersection when the area you are in is entirely deserted and there are zero other cars or people is stupid. We know why stop signs exist. They are very useful when there are other cars and people around. They keep people's behavior predictable and that makes us safer. They are pointless when nobody else is around though. It's still good to slow down just to be safe, but there's no reason to come to a full stop.
I see people rolling through stop signs when pedestrians and o5er cars are plentiful. Obviously the way people drive has changed in the last 20 years, especially since police aren’t really writing tickets anymore.
> And yet people still get hit rolling through stop signs.
Not when there aren't any other people around they don't.
Stop signs are good things to follow when they are needed, and pointless to follow when they aren't. People who roll through when they shouldn't are just as bad as people who don't stop or slow down at all and laws do and should exist to punish them. There's no need for enforcement in all cases though. Consideration of context is justice. Brain-dead enforcement regardless of circumstance or outcome is just oppression.
That's what slowing to a crawl is supposed to minimize. Not even coming to a full stop can prevent all accidents. There's no cure for the the blind/drunk/distracted/texting driver. They'll change lanes into other cars on a road with no stop signs, and on roads with them they can fail to see the sign entirely.
But if you've stopped and turned your head to look down both sides of the street instead of relying on your peripherals that suck at detecting changes in motion, you've done yourself a huge service in not getting hit.
depends if you live in neighbor hood laid out on a grid like I happen to, having a 4 way stop at every cross street on the grid is annoying and lead to starting and stopping every 200-150 feet it's stupid as there is virtually no traffic. but building a roundabout in the middle of every one of those intersections would be massive overkill and waste of space as it would take out each corner house on said grid. the best approach would be a low speed limit replace the stop signs with yield sign and turn the streets into alternating one-ways so you only have to check one direction for on coming traffic at each intersection
Interestingly enough, I lived in a part of Quebec City called Limoilou which is laid out exactly like you describe. Low speed limit, alternating one ways, very few stop signs. I think there are some boroughs in NYC that are like that as well.
I have turned the wrong way down a one way street one too many times, even after living there for several years:) surprisingly easy to do when not on GPS (not all one ways are properly marked)
I find whole concept of 4-way stop extremely weird. Either you have yield sign or you have equal crossing. STOP signs are only used in cases where there is a reason, like poor visibility or greatly different speeds.
A portable bandsaw, and discovered by the Brits (they're covertly fighting back against some pretty invasive automated monitoring), also makes short work of metal poles.
Just to be clear, I don't like red light cameras either, but if you are gonna put on a mask and fuck some shit up, why don't you wait outside of a bar and wait for drunk drivers?
I don't think it's speeding itself that causes crashes, but aggressive driving, and speed merely exacerbates aggressive driving. It is possible to speed without being aggressive, and in those scenarios, I don't consider speed to be a significant risk.
The German Autobahn have HALF the driver fatality rate as USA highways despite have wide sections with no speed limits.
Speed is fine. Keep right except when passing and you won't force faster drivers to constantly change lanes to get around you.
> but if you are gonna put on a mask and fuck some shit up, why don't you wait outside of a bar and wait for drunk drivers?
because one is damaging equipment that shouldn't exist, and the other involves ambushing a person on baseless suspicion. Presumably by force, given we're trying to fuck some shit up...
I'm going to pretend to ignore the whataboutism distraction
Try this on as a thought experiment: stopping drunk driving (including via physical force) is community self defense. Someone choosing to drive while intoxicated is an assault against everyone else in the area, and it is morally acceptable to use various means, including violence, to prevent that behavior.
this isn't a thought experiment, it's a simple rhetorical argument. But does calling it a thought experiment as if it was something wearable normally work?
But to answer your argument, I already agree that it's ethical to use force, even if it rises to the level that causes harm. But only if you're correct that you're preventing impaired driving. Humans are famously bad at making solo judgments like this to the standard I'd require to consider it acceptable. I wont advocate for someone to do something when I believe a negative outcome is more likely than a positive result.
But given violence means physical force with the intent to cause harm, I strongly disagree that the ethical way to behave involves intentionally causing injury. unintentional injury as an unfortunate byproduct is permissible in the is permissible in the "thought experiment" you propose, but only when it is actively avoided never when it's intentional.
I.e. I think you meant to say physical force not violence.
Driving is the most dangerous thing we all do on a regular basis. You do not own the roads, you are not the center of the universe. Drive safely and try giving a crap about other people.
Well yeah, it'd be extremely myopic to invent technology to solve this intermediary problem of rolling stops, rather than addressing the outcome via technology which we do all the time.
In addition to standard car safety features, there are cars that will engage breaks automatically if they detect imminent and unavoidable collision.
Also we have technology like traffic lights and red light cameras if stop signs are not good enough for the scale.
In the case of this Amazon thing, what I hope is that the inefficiency of it strangles itself to death. For example, if I tried to start a restaurant and I decided that the people working in the kitchen had to keep their mouth closed or get fired, then my restaurant would quickly go out of business.
