Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop: Great video for bike-riders everywhere

[darkemeralds]

Gosh, I hope I'm not spamming the comm today. This just came to my attention and I thought it was fantastic and worth sharing. It's an instructional video designed to explain the "Idaho stop law." In the US state of Idaho, traffic law allows bicyclists to use a rolling stop--i.e., an informed slowdown--at stop signs, rather than requiring a full stop in all instances.

"Cyclists are scofflaws and always blow stop signs" is a common complaint by motorists who sometimes seem to think that this fact rules out funding for cycling infrastructure (or, in extreme cases, justifies attempted vehicular manslaughter).

This video, by Spencer Boomhower, is the clearest, most rational explanation I've seen for why the Idaho stop law makes perfect sense as a general cycling strategy on streets and roadways shared with cars. It's well worth showing to non-bike-riding friends and family.

Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop from Spencer Boomhower on Vimeo.

Comments

[sara]

Spam the comm! Spam the comm!

[darkemeralds]

Hee! All righty then.

I love how the bike rider in the video changes color to represent his energy-efficiency (or, I suppose, the inertia/momentum transfer physics thingy-that-I-don't-know-the-name-of-'cuz-I-majored-in-French).

It's just a really well-designed video. This Spencer Boomhower has a real talent for using computer animation to demonstrate facts.

[sara]

It's very nice and levelheaded about the whole thing.

Of course, I learned to drive in L.A., so I've never met a rolling stop I didn't like. *GRIN*

[darkemeralds]

Seriously! The video unintentionally makes a GREAT case for European-style roundabouts. Stopping and starting is the biggest waste of fuel--mine or my car's--on the road.

[sara]

Oh, I dunno, we got one of those down here near the new hospital and it's pretty much been a complete disaster. People keep running down old folks and people in wheelchairs. I've been through it a few times on bikes and it scares the bejeepers out of me.

[darkemeralds]

Yeah, we're not bred to them. When I was driving in France on a not-too-long-ago vacation, they petrified me and I'm sure I annoyed (if not endangered) the natives trying to figure them out at French highway speeds. And in Britain, on the left-hand side of the road? Fugeddaboudit!

But if we WERE bred to them--well, bicycling has made me keenly aware within my very body of the efficiency differential between stopping and merely slowing down.

[ironed_orchid]

We've had roundabouts in Australia for about 20 years, and it still scares me to go around some on my bike.

[darkemeralds]

I can't help wondering how the transition to roundabouts went. It seems a very bold move.

And I would NOT want to try one on my bike, except on the quietest back roads.

[ironed_orchid]

It seems to work okay. Although a lot of drivers still don't know how to indicate when leaving the roundabout. We have roundabouts or stop signs or give way signs or traffic lights depending on the intersecton.

The only place I have seen roundabouts fail is when they are combined with pedestrian crossings, because the point of roundabouts if to keep traffic moving and pedestrian crossings stop traffic.

[sara]

I think maybe that's the problem with the one in Springfield -- it has something like five roads feeding into it and all of them have various pedestrian opportunities. It's...well, I detour around it.

[copracat]

I was reading recently, but can't find the link, about roundabouts being dangerous for cyclists because cars enter them without seeing you or don't consider that a bike is taking up any space on the roundabout. Pity they are all up and down my street to calm traffic!

[vlion]

In Moscow, Idaho, bikes own the road. Mostly because, uh, the cops don't crack down on any violation, however egrarious? And if they do, no one hears about...

[copracat]

What a great video. Thank you.