HackerTube.dev

Idaho Stop for Cyclists? Drivers Already Do It!

Oh The Urbanity! · 33.6K views · 2021-07-25 · 4:22

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

A short urbanism video presenting original observations of how drivers treat stop signs, to argue that cyclists rolling through them under an Idaho stop is no different. It filmed intersections in Ottawa.

On Hacker News

Linked in threads on the Idaho and Colorado safety stop as evidence that drivers already roll stop signs.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2022–2023

Topics

Transit, cities & urban planning
Search by tags
idaho stopcyclingurbanismtraffic lawsstop signs

What people said

joshlemer · 2022-11 · Recommendation

I'll also add that the anger of motorists towards cyclists rolling through stop signs is completely irrational when you take into consideration that approximately 100% of motorists also run through almost all stop signs, so long as they aren't blocked by an other car. This twitter video exemplifies it pretty well [LINK] We just take for granted that cars will blast through stop signs at a pretty high speed (maybe 10 - 20 km/h?). But when we see a cyclist do it, for some reason there seems to be some sort of optical or logical illusion that makes it stick out to us more. If you look at the speed these cars are going at, a lot of them are probably actually going at around the full cruising speed of a casual cyclist. So, considering most cyclists would actually slow down somewhat to roll through a stop sign, they're probably actually going faster. Oh the Urbanity! Recently had a great episode on this as well [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
ryukafalz · 2023-06 · Reference

It's not as comprehensive as you're probably looking for, but I saw a video a while back with some observations on this in Ottawa: [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
ThatGeoGuy · 2022-04 · Reference

This is actually what this law is about. The difference between a cyclist at a stop sign and your average vehicle is visibility. Cyclists don't have blind spots the way cars & trucks do. So if you can reasonably see that there is no immediate traffic, you don't have to wait at an intersection and risk hoping that another driver at a 4 way stop will respect the stop sign. This whole law is being called the "Colorado Safety Stop" but was initially called an Idaho stop [1][2]. It resulted in a 23% reduction in bicycle crashes in intersections with STOP signs only [3]. Even if you think the results are not intuitive, they are certainly backed by data. Making this a law just means cyclists won't be harassed by law enforcement for doing what is statistically known to be safer. [1] [LINK] [2] [VIDEO] [3] [LINK]

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Oh The Urbanity!, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources