"Arkansas Stop" law - changing the rules at red lights and stop signs
 

https://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlo...ike-stop-signs
While I appreciate giving the freedom to bicyclists to read the situation, I have a bad feeling that the outcome might be more collisions from drivers who aren't educated about the changes. It references a similar law that's been on the books in Idaho for a while-- does anyone know how the reception has been up there?

(It occurs to me that with such a law, there will be less pressure to install bike-friendly infrastructure like bike lane pressure pads or walk signal buttons. In fact, a lot of intersections even in cities here lack even pedestrian-targeted walk signals)

Talk to people in Idaho. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop) Instituted in 1982. Still working.

Idaho stop law indicates that it makes cyclist safer. All states need to implement the law. Many cyclist apply the law even in the other states for their own safety.

Police around here seem to have no concern as long as it is done safely.

Been a law many places many years with success for motorcyclists. Motorcycles don't trip the lights at those lights from a side road that crosses a 55mph divided road. Meaning at non-busy hours a motorcycle crossing would either have to run it red or wait possibly 10 minutes for a car to come up from behind.

In town, I usually hit pause....roll over to the cross walk button, hit it, then get back to the light.

I've ridden in Boise, Sandpoint and a couple of other places. They exist.

I do most of my recreational riding in the adjacent county as I live on the county line. That county still has no traffic lights. I believe it's the only one left in state.

Of course they exist. How many?

Dukes County and Nantucket County in Massachusetts have ZERO traffic lights.

-mr. bill

By my count, 8,347 in the entire state. Seems like that number is increasing:

https://www.idahopress.com/news/loca...c83b291d8.html

I didn't count stop signs, which are also covered by the Idaho Stop Law.

Just double checking, are those two new traffic signals in Garden City, by your count:

75 lights?
24 lights?
? lights?


XKCD
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/traffic_lights.gif

-mr. bill

This is news to me. Are you certain its a law in places you think it is and not just something you've been told? Everywhere I'm aware of the traffic laws say motorcycles follow all the same signal and sign rules as cars on the road.

Look for "dead red" laws. 10 states as of last year.

-mr. bill

Ahh, that is indeed news to me. Hard to tell from the summary but I'd be curious where all it applies to motorcycles and if in those places it applies to all the situations (treating a stop sign as a yield etc.) or just the "won't trigger the signal sensor". I had no idea any of these applied to motorcycles though. Thanks.

As a resident of Washington State, it is my understanding that you have to sit for 1 whole complete cycle, & only then is it permissable to proceed. The logic is the infrastructure provided was not sensetive enough to detect your presence to operate in the manner intended.

However, the "I didn't stop because that light is broken" excuse is not valid in court. That's what the ccomplete cycle" thing is about.

There is a law on the books requiring all new intersections being built & all intersections being repaired or upgraded be equipped to be able to detect bicycles & light vehicles such as motorcycles. Motion detection cameras & AI seems to be the method of choice. I hit several suitably equipped intersections on my morning commute. I think it's called "dynamic traffic management," but I may be wrong. I've gotta say, though, by whatever name they call it the system works well.

Edit: Yep. Gotta stop & wait 1 complete cycle.

I live where actual crimes occur fairly regularly, so the police in my experience do not care about cyclists at all. I've rolled stop signs and jumped the light right in front of police cruisers, and they don't even look twice. We barely register to people in cars, I'm not sure we register to cops at all. Now if you have a bag of aluminum cans hanging from your handlebars, that sure seems to be a different story.

I apply the Idaho Stop here 100%-- stop sign is a yield, red light is a stop sign. The California Vehicle Code was written 100% for motor vehicles. Bicycles are a footnote at best, and little of the content is concerned with the safety of cyclists. I see someone try to race a railway crossing at least once a week. So they're clearly not even really that concerned about their own welfare. I'll keep looking out for myself, the laws can catch up later.

The logic breaks down when some lights don't trigger outside of commuter hours unless cross-traffic is present. You would have to sit until dawn waiting for a "complete" cycle.
Most of those cases are common-sense situations anyway. if i can look a quarter-mile down the road in each direction and see no cars, only a top-fuel dragster could hit me before i crossed ... and anything going nearly that fast, i would hear before I could see it.

A sensored intersection that doesn't cycle would actually be broken or defective & thus legal to proceed after stopping & the system demonstrating it did not detect as intended.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) I live and travel in many places where police are bored and free to jack with motorists and on occasion cyclist.

Funny story, I was once pulled over (while driving a car) by a police officer on a bicycle. This was not a congested metro area where that would make sense btw. This was in the early 90's in a sprawling suburb where I'd never even seen a local officer on a bicycle. I was approaching an intersection out of a neighborhood onto a slightly larger/faster road and rolled significantly past the stop sign just as he rode by on the street I was turning onto. As I turned he waved me over to stop. If I recall correctly he only gave me a warning though.

I've been preaching similar behavior for decades. If done carefully and correctly, in some situations, "running" a red can reduce the numbers of cars overtaking you from 100/day to ZERO or darned near zero. At least the way I do it in my city situation. Your results may vary.

My #1 safety tip for cyclists is to "reduce your exposure to motorized traffic" whatever it takes. 100 fewer cars per commute is quite a reduction of risk IMO. I seem to be able to look both ways and cross a street safely however. As witnessed here on BF, not everyone has that capability. No law against WAITING for the light to go green if you cant figure it out.

Good news on Arkansas, hope this is a trend.

Tangent--I was riding in Leominster, MA last Saturday, and a couple entered the crosswalk on the left side of the street. A car in behind me passed me and zoomed through the crosswalk like they weren't even there. The couple was so surprised I stopped to wait for them to cross that it actually took them a second or two to catch on and start walking again. We all laughed when one of the crossers pointed out how ironic it was that it was the vehicle that could fall over at a stop was the one that actually obeyed the law.

Yup. People smile when you don't treat them like meat pylons.


-mr. bill

Exhibit A the next time somebody says drivers are more law-obedient than bicyclists.