Seattle Forrest

Effective October 1. The Bellinghamster Herald wrote a trip part series explaining the new law change.
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https://www.bellinghamherald.com/new...245635760.html

aplcr0331

Nice, thanks for posting this.

rsbob 

Good news. Now I won’t waste my time chasing down riders and telling them how they give the rest of us a bad name, even though a quick sprint never hurt anyone. Now who is going to tell the irate motorists? I’m sure not going to chase them.

Seattle Forrest

For what it's worth, the new law lets us treat stop signs as yields, but it doesn't let us treat red lights as stop signs, like Idaho's law does. I've only ever heard of these laws being enforced against cyclists on Mercer Island, and many cyclists already operate under the Idaho version of the law as a matter of course, so this won't change a lot. But it codifies into law what has become standard practice with regard to stop signs.

woodway

Specifically, at the bottom of the hill below the MI Community Center, LOL!

But, also I have seen cyclists stopped on the Burke-Gilman at the stop signs in Lake Forest Park.

SurferRosa

If I ever get stopped after running a red light, I will just say I actually stopped, turned right, pulled a u-turn and another right, but was so fast, maybe someone thought I rolled straight through it. If, in the odd chance the case went to court, I will hold the floor for a good ten minutes discussing space travel via vintage steel and the music of Leon Russell.

allan6344

We had a evening group ride (slow social pace) going from Perkins lane past the Lake Forest Park fire station and left on to the Burke Gilman trail. As I approached the mall stop sign by the station I saw the light across Bothell Way would be green so we rolled the stop sign to make the light as there was no one else even near the stop signs. There was a young eager LFP officer who decided to race across the parking lot, use his lights through the intersection and race down to the next intersection of the BG trail stop so he could lecture us about stop signs and just because we wanted to keep our heart rate up we still need to stop. We were really trying to get through as quickly as possible without causing any traffic delay. We all were old enough to keep quiet and not laugh. As far as I know even before the change in the law, they could not ticket you for a stop sign in the mall that is not on a city street. Kenmore likes to watch the intersections between Log Boom park and Juanita road. There will probably be a few people caught for not stopping when there are vehicles at cross stop signs.

Summersnake

I used to ride with a guy at Microsoft who wrote compilers. He used to point out that for cyclists, the stoplight was a no-op, and so the right thing to do was to optimize the codepath by omitting the stop. He didn't run red lights, he simply optimized them away (hopefully this is understandable by people who don't write optimizing compilers for a living;-))

cficole

Interesting idea, hope it works out. Driver education on the change will be important.

Stetr24VW

I've recently started riding again and noticed a lot of people "running" stops when turning right. Now I know why! Thanks for posting this!

skipper0802

At a stop sign on the Burke-Gilman, I pulled alongside a lady already waiting for the car to pass through. A moment later, when she rolled, I did too. The LFP officer pulled me aside and wrote me a ticket for not putting my foot down at the stop sign. Oh well.

woodway

This statement shows a lack of lack of respect for the men and women in the Seattle PD that are trying to do a good job under difficult circumstances.

Getting ticketed for not putting a foot down is really stupid. But making a blanket statement like this about all Seattle police is not right either.

woodway

Sorry! My apologies and I will try to do a better job in the future. I'm sensitive because I have a son who is Seattle PD, and I hear what he deals with every day and the impact it has on him as a person.