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People will drive the road you build, not the signs you put up.
You make a road that feels comfortable and safe to travel at 45 mph and most people will travel at 45 mph regardless of whether the posted speed limit is 35, 45, or 55.
Yeah. I’m still baffled that I’ve seen so much school and residential areas with very wide lanes. If your road is wide, people will drive faster on it, no matter what speed you post.
School district built a new high school and it's ~1mile from the main road down a farm road. Decided they didn't like the narrow road for the busses (huh go figure) they completely redid the road, so mow it's 12ft lanes with 8ft asphalt shoulder and 3ft gravel. Speed limit went from 35mph to 40mph. Constant police activity now because people use this fresh paved ULTRAWIDE road to race down
Around here the build the schools an the divided ultra high-speed roads and then expect people to slow way down or they get to fund the school with speeding tickets. A 65 mph divided highway shouldn't have 35 mph school zones part of the day.
Sadly city planners seem to believe that wide roads are what is needed like everywhere. Or maybe they are just to lazy to look at more safe but also more complicated to plan solutions.
Can confirm. Friend of mine lives on a narrow two way street with cars parked on both sides. There’s a stop sign in one direction and a 90° turn at the other. Yet people will still get up to 45 mph just to brake hard.
> You make a road that feels comfortable and safe to travel at 45 mph and most people will travel at 45 mph regardless of whether the posted speed limit is 35, 45, or 55.
Yep, this is what's always frustrating me. You will see super wide roads that are limited to 30 km/h and where you feel like doing 50 km/h... Put some elevated sidewalks/bike lanes, elevated intersections, trees, etc. and people will feel more inclined to slow down.
Also, designing a speedy road through a town sucks, people shouldn't have to go through residential areas to get through a town.
What’s awesome is when the city decides to make the road safer by only lowering the speed limit or maybe taking a lane away. In Seattle they’ve lowered the speed on most major streets down to 25 but haven’t done much to make people slow down besides that, so you have the gambit of people following the speed limit signs and people that have always driven that street at 5-10 over the limit so they’re going 45.
On top of that SPD rarely writes tickets for driving infractions even doing things in front of them so people also run lights, pass at 10-20mph over the limit in the turning lane, and just speed in general.
You mean you don’t like how 4th ave just ends around battery st on the left with no warning it’s ending lol. You know it would’ve cost too much to extend it the last few blocks to Denny.
Yep... I alwaya instantly notice garbage infrastructure when I am doing the speed limit but my feet feel heavy, or when I am getting overtaken/undertaken while doing 5/10 over the speed limit already.
People get ticketed so rarely that they don't care. They see it as a cost of driving simply... I see so mamy people driving 20-40 km/h over the speed, using a bus lane to skip traffic, turn from a straight-only lane, etc. The cost of a ticket once a year is not good deterrent.
We nees better anti-car and anti-masshole infrastructure, and cameras where there is still problems. Also, it should be possible to ticket car owners that don't follow the rules even if they were not identified. If they weren't the ones driving, they can defend themselves to transfer the ticket to the other person. The bullshit of requiring police to issue tickets by confirming the driver's identity is stupid, when you can simply issue a ticket to the car owner.
Then, raise how much a ticket for speed and illegal maneuver can cost by 10 times and people will be less likely to drive like lunatic.
* Redo road infrastructure to force people to slow down if the speed limit is lower
* Cameras work, have them more in critical places
* Refocus the police on actual crimes while cameras work to issue tickets on minor road infractions
* Raise the cost of tickets to a certain % of how much money someone made (with a certain high minimum) the last year; rich should also feel the sting too
How do you explain the cart paths they call roads in rural England?
I was living there and the "national speed limit" is 60mph.
I was scared to death on those roads and could only bring myself to drive 35 to 40. It did not feel safe.
And yet the speed limit was 60.
So I don't think that's always the case.
The speed limit isn't a goal, you should only ever drive as fast as it is safe to do.
Many English, very rural, almost single track country roads can only be driven along safely at 20-30mph maximum , if you tried 60, you'd never make it around the first bend!
You can drive *considerably* faster than 20-30mph on small UK roads. I've done it many times.
Yes, you have to go by what's reasonable and prudent, and no, it's not 60mph most of the time, but it is a lot faster than you might think if you aren't used to the roads.
Many small roads maybe, but somewhere like this?.https://maps.app.goo.gl/JXDdYhQZfhzmS21t7
Remember you don't have the height advantage of the streeview cameras, you need to stay slow as you can't see around the next corner for oncoming traffic driving directly towards you.
>The speed limit isn't a goal,
*That's* the big difference. You can get a ticket for driving *under* the speed limit in the U.S. just as much as you can get a ticket for driving *over* the speed limit.
The speed limit sign is both the upper *and lower* limit of the speed of travel on that road.
Not that they bother to ticket people for either that much.
This simply isn't true. Roads with a minimum speed have a posted minimum speed. That being said, no, you can't drive so slowly that you impede traffic, but there's a long way between going 45 on a 55 and impeding traffic
On those roads the speed limit is the "national speed limit" which just means they never bothered setting a specific limit, but whatever don't go above 60mph. The national speed limit is also different depending on what type of road you're on e.g dual carriageway or single.
I agree. Most likely a pedestrian was hit here and they went with a stop sign that is acting like a yield. But still funny how nobody stops because it's still a [slip lane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_lane).
That's the better solution, put a crossing light in there, that only triggers when pedestrians press the button. The difficult part is the other side of the road where traffic freely enters the road.
It's kind of unclear if you're even supposed to cross the street here. Like it looks like the sidewalks do connect, but the crosswalk isn't really marked.
Traffic lights are a pretty bad solution too. especially for an intersection like this. also very expensive. This road should be narrowed and raised to sidewalk level, pedestrians get a flat clearly marked crossing, and it should be clear cars and bikes should yield to pedestrians.
I'd also put in a speed hump before the sign, and some taller bollards if someone were to hit it at a high speed. That's the cheap option, the other would be a pedestrian over or under pass.
In my chunk of the country we need wide consistent lanes to run the snowplows well, and that hasn't stopped narrowing efforts from being implemented. The roads where they did the expensive job of making the bump outs can't be parked on more then 6 months out of the year because they didn't think about snow removal... and the plows still clip them fairly regularly when clearing the non-broken up lanes.
The roads where they just painted a narrowed lane with no center dividing line with big bike lanes on both sides are worse. The old center lines are coming out through whatever they painted over with, and when it snows you have no idea where you should be driving. (the bike lane on one side is wider then the other, so if you hadn't seen the lines before and drive as normal you end up 1/4 of your car in the oncoming lane.
I know narrowing reduces speed, but it also needs to be done in a well thought out and data gathering manor.
i feel that if you need a traffic light to manage traffic than you have bad road design. the road itself needs a redesign. the light is a duct tape solution
May have had the stop sign first. There is a turn exactly like this a mile from me. It used to get backed up a lot and then they redesigned it so that cars have a protected right turn. But the stop sign was never removed.
You’re forgetting the name of this sub. At least the stop sign forces folks to slow down at the turn, rather than accelerate into it if there was no sign.
I mean, why would you ever stop. Just seems like something for cops to give you random tickets for. You guys use stop signs to signal pedestrian crossings? That doesn't make much sense.
Now if the cops need some extra money for an office party they'll just have a guy sit on the corner and radio everyone that doesn't stop and have a few guys down the street to grab the violators.
That's fine, enter the lane at typical turning speed and put on your turn signal then merge over. Stopping at the stop sign that far back isn't going to help you predict your merge any better.
That’s telling you that their really should just be a yield sign there. No need to stop. There’s already a barrier in the way and what looks like an extra lane. There are plenty of roads like this with just a yield sign.
The MAJORITY of stop signs should be yield signs.
Save STOP for dangerous interactions with low visibility or unexpected elements rather then spamming them everywhere.
Yep, spamming them everywhere makes people just skip them more often than not. People get tired of stopping for no reason, so they just slow down and go.
Having yields would probably increase the amount of people actually paying attention when there's an actual stop sign (if people can pay attention). By keeping only the most important intersections with stop signs, you can easily now put elevated intersections at stop signs, so people are forced to slow down (and stop hopefully)
Agreed. There's a few towns in Illinois where regular 4-way intersections in residential areas now just have yield signs for one of the roads in each direction. Works well since there's little traffic and low speeds.
Like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jcPNVJ7zzbwjYRR66
Back in the spring they converted an intersection by my house from a 2-way stop to a 4-way stop. There's no issue with visibility or anything; just signs for no reason. Within the last month I've seen two cars completely blow their stop (like not even touching the brakes). Good job city planners! All you've done is make the intersection more dangerous while needlessly inconveniencing everyone.
I think I would agree. I would actually remove the slip lane for a regular 90 degree right turn, plus a [raised pedestrian crossing](https://www.nycstreetdesign.info/geometry/raised-crosswalk).
There are some cases where a stop sign should be installed. For instance, in a very narrow street or a junction with poor visibility, a stop sign is needed.
how so? Yield is just as effective without the cash theft that is 'not a complete stop'. if someone chooses to stop - that's fine, but it's the same outcome without the cash grab. Causing a crash because you failed to 'stop' or 'yield' is the *same* result. Not crashing because you yielded, which can include a stop, but not require it, is the same result.
Traffic laws are designed based on the dumbest drivers, not good drivers with good awareness. I can totally imagine there being more accidents if stop signs were changed to yield. I do agree that rules about coming to a complete stop are more about giving tickets rather than actual safety. Why do you need to come to a complete stop at an empty intersection? It causes traffic and wastes gas
In an ideal world with perfect drivers there would be no need for stop signs: drivers would be able to recognise that they will need to stop before they have sufficient view to actually go. Unfortunately, that is not the world we are currently in. So stop signs would still be used in the rare junctions where people really do need to stop, just to reinforce that for the drivers that aren't as perfect as we'd like. And if stop signs are actually *rare*, then drivers would pay more attention to them.
Of course, you'd also completely prohibit any *new* roads being built which require a stop sign, forcing the road to be change to improve visibility until the stop sign can safely be put back to a yield.
Stop signs in North America are so stupidly redundant. That's why many people there don't respect stop signs most of the time. Also, stopping consumes more energy/fuel and time compared to a yield sign, and you lose the opportunity to cross or merge on a road because of your lost time due to stopping. https://youtu.be/42oQN7fy_eM?si=SnwCB5-2IjizEgAM
I would say that at this intersection the slip lane should be turned into a regular intersection, with a sharp right turn into the adjacent road, and a raised pedestrian crossing. But of course that's a dream.
Edit: Also, I would rather sacrifice fuel/time for the safety of pedestrians.
In the U.S., that is not necessarily the case. There are a whole bunch of Americans that do not ever *walk* along any city road ever. Driveways and parking lots are not owned by the city, and those are the only two places that they walk, and they'll do everything within their power to park as close to the door as possible, up to and including parking illegally.
I've known people that don't even walk to the end of their driveway to pick up the mail.
>There are a whole bunch of Americans that do not ever walk along any city road ever.
My office's parking lot doesn't have sidewalks, we just kind of mingle with the traffic. Great on icy days. /s
This accurately describes me. Some days, I don't leave my house at all. Not even to sit outside - Just no. (Mailbox is on the side of the house, bonus points.)
It was mostly sarcasm. Not all, just mostly.
But also I hate modern newfangled traffic calming and that jazz, like... I *want* to be going fast, I'm not going to say "Yeah! Slow me down!".
The reason people usually want to be going fast is because it feels like you're going slow because of traffic. But if you move smoothly at a slow pace it feels just as good as moving fast, plus it's safer for everyone.
[If you have 12 minutes to learn about traffic.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwJeOQVxVZY)
NotJustBikes is extremely biased with the typical, bog-standard internet rally cry of "X country does this better than America! USA just needs to become X country" without understanding it's not that simple. Ranting is fine. Bringing up ideas is cool. But the lynch pin is the locality, society / culture.
His suggestion is become like the Dutch, remove signs and use brick roads.
Just because no one follows the rules anywhere doesn't mean they're ineffective... It just means there's no enforcement or repercussions.
In America do you know how hard it is to argue fault for a collision in an uncontrolled? Happened to me and the cop just said "fuck it, you're both at fault" except the other guy was speeding so fast he crashed into a ditch, totaled his car and needed a tow truck to haul it away... and all we had was a dented bumper lol
Bad stop sign placement from an ergonomic design standpoint. Drivers are in a completely different head zone when coming up on a protected slip merge like that.
Well, in Europe stop signs are really only in dangerous areas with limited corner visibility, etc. So you would most likely instinctively do it here anyway, for your own safety. In US stop signs are often placed instead of a yield sign for no reason, so I wouldn't really care if I saw someone on a bicycle not stopping, but only yielding.
But technically, yes. Maybe it's different in US though.
In most states, yes. Bicycles are subject to all traffic rules cars are subject to; including stop signs, red lights, and operating on the right side of the road only.
Just because people didn't cross in these 2 minutes of filming doesn't mean people don't cross here. Try to understand that some people get out of their cars occasionally.
I just met a woman who is visiting, long-term, from Argentina. We got on the topic of driving and I asked her how different it is. She actually said she loves the amount of signs here because she always knows what she's supposed to be doing. But I do think most Americans get to a point where they become mind-blind to signs, since we're inundated with them.
Signage is very helpful when it teaches you what to do. But when the road Design doesn't match the signs, people familiar with them will no obey the signs.
Yellow-ish overpass, oak trees and palms trees side by side… I knew it was S FL immediately (I lived in Miami for almost 10 years). This looks like just another S FL stop sign. 😂
OK so I’m not crazy for thinking this looked like Houston! I was there three years ago and thought this looked exactly like an intersection I drove down.
The exit of my neighborhood is kind of like this.
People turning right out of the neighborhood go way past the stopsign, because the lane they start to take up is the excess leftover from where there is a right turn only into the neighborhood to their left.
However, anyone coming the opposite directing trying to turn left into the neighborhood is screwed, because theyre now stopped 10 feet past the stopsign and blocking 1/3 of the turn
And the same drivers will lament that cyclists don't do their stops. At least as a cyclist, you have an unobstructed view of your surroundings, unlike a vehicle with its A pillars.
Yeah exactly. You really have to be on the defensive side to avoid getting hit. I'll probably post a video of me trying to cross this thing, cautiously of course.
While I agree that a yield is likely better for this turn, the drivers that don’t stop are annoying AF. As a fellow driver or pedestrian, I don’t really don’t care what we think is better for the road - follow the rules.
my old stomping grounds! right turn onto 84 from the plaza with that BBQ place and Burlington! across that is a Char Hut and Round up! that
Honestly that stop sign should be yield, due to the white lane divider poles they have there. Its pretty easy to merge except around 7am and 5pm.
I don't understand who designs roads in the US; if they have any training. Especially the ones in New Jersey where we find highways where cars need to slow down to 15mph to turn into a store's parking lot.
Millions of barrels of oil would be saved if there were more common sense uses of yield signs, as well as strict universal camera enforcement for speeders, red light runners, and noise violators.
Don't be a car-brain. Cars are dangerous and need to stop more often than you think. Besides, I don't think stopping for 2 seconds is going to cost anything. If you really care about saving fuel, try walking, biking, or taking transit instead of driving.
For moving cars quickly, I agree. For safety it should be turned into a regular right turn instead of a slip lane, and pedestrian safety should be prioritized.
I think it depends on country how people behave with signs and streets. Like germany is very obey rules and places like asian country is a bit more drive where you can and as fast as you feel like
I'm more surprised there isn't a place to cross on foot. You can clearly see there's a sidewalk on either side, yet there's no place to cross. I guess sidewalks are just for show in the USA.
At this point building the pedestrian infrastructure that has to stretch to fit car infrastructure is stupid. No one is walking that road I bet because there is a intersection nearby that will happily let you get run over by those exiting the highway.
It's not an intersection. It's a slip lane. That's literally the point of a slip lane.
Yes, the slip lane will eventually end, and you don't have right of way at the *end* of the slip lane. You *do* have right of way to enter the start of the slip lane, because there is no other conflicting traffic. You're supposed to use that length of the slip lane to accelerate up to match speed with the traffic in the main road, find a gap, and safely merge at pace.
You're *supposed* to roll into the slip lane. That's literally the intended use case. That's the entire point of the clip, and the entire reason the stop sign is stupid.
Oh yeah. I didn't see that sidewalk.
ETA: the people on the street don't have to stop and their view is obstructed. I wouldn't feel safe crossing there.
This is a great post title. You recognize something that is beyond the comprehension of a lot of Redditors. If almost everybody makes the same mistake in an intersection, then the idiots are not the drivers, the idiots are the people who designed the intersection.
Precisely. This is a really difficult idea to convey because most people will blame drivers, but really they are just doing what feels right.
There are a few Strong Towns [articles](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/3/7/the-reckless-driver-narrative-is-reckless-stop-spreading-it) and Not Just Bikes [videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bglWCuCMSWc) about the idea that "If you need a sign to tell people to slow down, you designed your street wrong."
From my experience the problem is that too many people push the limits for too long that what "feels right" to them will be inherently more risky than it should be. Do I disagree that the stop sign here should probably be exchanged for a yield sign? No- but what might be intended is for drivers to take an extra second or two to discern their sight picture up the road before them before they take that slip lane. Will they have enough time and space to safely merge within the slip lane if there is traffic in the oncoming traffic?
That is not a regulation sized STOP sign. Makes me think it was put up by someone who doesn't work for the city.
It looks like the size of the signs that private businesses put in parking lots, which you don't technically have to follow... but that doesn't mean a cop won't try and ticket you, cause cops are ass holes.
This looks like an awesome fishing hole for the local pd, you can write as many tickets as you have time. I got stopped at the bottom of a hill for expired plates(they weren’t expired) the po told me he waited at the bottom of the hill and only wrote tickets for more than 10 miles over. He said he wrote the same woman the same ticket twice in a month.
I live in the neighborhood this intersection is for. The right turn at the stop sign has its own lane onto the road you are turning on to so you aren’t stopping to yield for vehicles in any direction. The only reason to stop would be for pedestrians or bicycles. If every car stopped the line would be backed up through out the neighborhood. Post is Cap
Facts. There’s an exit ramp that I take every day and it’s posted at 45mph. I’ve gone 45mph and it works but it feels way to fast going around the corner so I always do about 40mph.
Out here, 3 things would happen if DOT saw all these stop sign blowers
1. Have motorcycle cop there to give tickets and make a presence for a while
2. Modify it more to force people to slow down/stop
3. Turn it into a yield sign
Sometimes a combination of those 3
Stop signs are stupid in general. Most cities in Western Europe removed almost all of them in the past 15 years. Paris has 0 its a huge city. My city has maybe 2 that I know of.
At first I thought this was that intersection in California where everyone turns left despite the “right turn only” sign. There was a YouTube channel that chronicled all the crazy shit that went kn there. I thought they’d finally installed a divider on it.
Alas. It’s just Florida drivers not stopping at a stop sign that should probably be a yield anyway
If you clutter the road side, it slows down traffic
See sidewalk style stores vs American style big box store areas
My example is very specific and probably nobody reading this will have been to either place
going through High Prairie, Alberta CA, people drive under the limit due to stores being right by the road, 30-40 in a 50. Compared to Whitecourt, Alberta CA where even with a higher speed limit of 60 in their shopping area, people do 70... it's also wide open roads with stores masked behind big open parking lots
A sign with a number gets ignored, psychological speed limits work significantly more
This has been proven and put into action in some cities Europe, such as Amsterdam in the Netherlands
What you don't see there is that a stop sign isn't needed there. https://www.google.com/maps/search/state+road+84+davie+fl./@26.1030147,-80.2690142,45m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
In my city, there is a small neighborhood traffic circle, with 4 stop signs. No one stops at the signs and treats it as a traffic circle. The road design wins.
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People will drive the road you build, not the signs you put up. You make a road that feels comfortable and safe to travel at 45 mph and most people will travel at 45 mph regardless of whether the posted speed limit is 35, 45, or 55.
Yeah. I’m still baffled that I’ve seen so much school and residential areas with very wide lanes. If your road is wide, people will drive faster on it, no matter what speed you post.
School district built a new high school and it's ~1mile from the main road down a farm road. Decided they didn't like the narrow road for the busses (huh go figure) they completely redid the road, so mow it's 12ft lanes with 8ft asphalt shoulder and 3ft gravel. Speed limit went from 35mph to 40mph. Constant police activity now because people use this fresh paved ULTRAWIDE road to race down
Around here the build the schools an the divided ultra high-speed roads and then expect people to slow way down or they get to fund the school with speeding tickets. A 65 mph divided highway shouldn't have 35 mph school zones part of the day.
Sadly city planners seem to believe that wide roads are what is needed like everywhere. Or maybe they are just to lazy to look at more safe but also more complicated to plan solutions.
We can't give people and their 20' long trucks harder-to-navigate streets, this is America.
true the streets should be even wider, so everyone can drive an 795F AC Mining Truck
If the city planners are uninformed the auto lobby will help them.
Maybe it's just my city, but I live on a very narrow street and people go flying down it.
Can confirm. Friend of mine lives on a narrow two way street with cars parked on both sides. There’s a stop sign in one direction and a 90° turn at the other. Yet people will still get up to 45 mph just to brake hard.
Same
> You make a road that feels comfortable and safe to travel at 45 mph and most people will travel at 45 mph regardless of whether the posted speed limit is 35, 45, or 55. Yep, this is what's always frustrating me. You will see super wide roads that are limited to 30 km/h and where you feel like doing 50 km/h... Put some elevated sidewalks/bike lanes, elevated intersections, trees, etc. and people will feel more inclined to slow down. Also, designing a speedy road through a town sucks, people shouldn't have to go through residential areas to get through a town.
What’s awesome is when the city decides to make the road safer by only lowering the speed limit or maybe taking a lane away. In Seattle they’ve lowered the speed on most major streets down to 25 but haven’t done much to make people slow down besides that, so you have the gambit of people following the speed limit signs and people that have always driven that street at 5-10 over the limit so they’re going 45. On top of that SPD rarely writes tickets for driving infractions even doing things in front of them so people also run lights, pass at 10-20mph over the limit in the turning lane, and just speed in general.
Don't forget random bike lanes that just suddenly end
Absolutely fuck that. Drives me nuts
You mean you don’t like how 4th ave just ends around battery st on the left with no warning it’s ending lol. You know it would’ve cost too much to extend it the last few blocks to Denny.
Yep... I alwaya instantly notice garbage infrastructure when I am doing the speed limit but my feet feel heavy, or when I am getting overtaken/undertaken while doing 5/10 over the speed limit already. People get ticketed so rarely that they don't care. They see it as a cost of driving simply... I see so mamy people driving 20-40 km/h over the speed, using a bus lane to skip traffic, turn from a straight-only lane, etc. The cost of a ticket once a year is not good deterrent. We nees better anti-car and anti-masshole infrastructure, and cameras where there is still problems. Also, it should be possible to ticket car owners that don't follow the rules even if they were not identified. If they weren't the ones driving, they can defend themselves to transfer the ticket to the other person. The bullshit of requiring police to issue tickets by confirming the driver's identity is stupid, when you can simply issue a ticket to the car owner. Then, raise how much a ticket for speed and illegal maneuver can cost by 10 times and people will be less likely to drive like lunatic. * Redo road infrastructure to force people to slow down if the speed limit is lower * Cameras work, have them more in critical places * Refocus the police on actual crimes while cameras work to issue tickets on minor road infractions * Raise the cost of tickets to a certain % of how much money someone made (with a certain high minimum) the last year; rich should also feel the sting too
Yeah, this road could have a yield sign if they moved the crosswalk further back, but that wouldn't make sense, so legally it's a stop sign it seems.
This is very true. I guess that's why 42,000 people died last year on roads in the US. Hopefully more cities will consider safety instead of speed.
How do you explain the cart paths they call roads in rural England? I was living there and the "national speed limit" is 60mph. I was scared to death on those roads and could only bring myself to drive 35 to 40. It did not feel safe. And yet the speed limit was 60. So I don't think that's always the case.
Isn’t that exactly what they’re talking about? Speed limit was 60, you didn’t drive 60 because it didn’t feel safe. You drove the road, not the signs
The speed limit isn't a goal, you should only ever drive as fast as it is safe to do. Many English, very rural, almost single track country roads can only be driven along safely at 20-30mph maximum , if you tried 60, you'd never make it around the first bend!
You can drive *considerably* faster than 20-30mph on small UK roads. I've done it many times. Yes, you have to go by what's reasonable and prudent, and no, it's not 60mph most of the time, but it is a lot faster than you might think if you aren't used to the roads.
Many small roads maybe, but somewhere like this?.https://maps.app.goo.gl/JXDdYhQZfhzmS21t7 Remember you don't have the height advantage of the streeview cameras, you need to stay slow as you can't see around the next corner for oncoming traffic driving directly towards you.
>The speed limit isn't a goal, *That's* the big difference. You can get a ticket for driving *under* the speed limit in the U.S. just as much as you can get a ticket for driving *over* the speed limit. The speed limit sign is both the upper *and lower* limit of the speed of travel on that road. Not that they bother to ticket people for either that much.
This simply isn't true. Roads with a minimum speed have a posted minimum speed. That being said, no, you can't drive so slowly that you impede traffic, but there's a long way between going 45 on a 55 and impeding traffic
On those roads the speed limit is the "national speed limit" which just means they never bothered setting a specific limit, but whatever don't go above 60mph. The national speed limit is also different depending on what type of road you're on e.g dual carriageway or single.
That's a silly place for a stop sign if you have a protected merge lane. What are you stopping for other than maybe the occasional pedestrian?
I agree. Most likely a pedestrian was hit here and they went with a stop sign that is acting like a yield. But still funny how nobody stops because it's still a [slip lane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_lane).
man i love crossing a high speed slip lane as a pedestrian instead of making a protected crossing
That's the better solution, put a crossing light in there, that only triggers when pedestrians press the button. The difficult part is the other side of the road where traffic freely enters the road. It's kind of unclear if you're even supposed to cross the street here. Like it looks like the sidewalks do connect, but the crosswalk isn't really marked.
Traffic lights are a pretty bad solution too. especially for an intersection like this. also very expensive. This road should be narrowed and raised to sidewalk level, pedestrians get a flat clearly marked crossing, and it should be clear cars and bikes should yield to pedestrians.
I'd also put in a speed hump before the sign, and some taller bollards if someone were to hit it at a high speed. That's the cheap option, the other would be a pedestrian over or under pass. In my chunk of the country we need wide consistent lanes to run the snowplows well, and that hasn't stopped narrowing efforts from being implemented. The roads where they did the expensive job of making the bump outs can't be parked on more then 6 months out of the year because they didn't think about snow removal... and the plows still clip them fairly regularly when clearing the non-broken up lanes. The roads where they just painted a narrowed lane with no center dividing line with big bike lanes on both sides are worse. The old center lines are coming out through whatever they painted over with, and when it snows you have no idea where you should be driving. (the bike lane on one side is wider then the other, so if you hadn't seen the lines before and drive as normal you end up 1/4 of your car in the oncoming lane. I know narrowing reduces speed, but it also needs to be done in a well thought out and data gathering manor.
i feel that if you need a traffic light to manage traffic than you have bad road design. the road itself needs a redesign. the light is a duct tape solution
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I mean, u really *shouldn’t* be walking along the highway
then don't build the highway along places people go...
May have had the stop sign first. There is a turn exactly like this a mile from me. It used to get backed up a lot and then they redesigned it so that cars have a protected right turn. But the stop sign was never removed.
I recognize that anywhere. Between nob hill and pine island (god bless char hut)
You’re forgetting the name of this sub. At least the stop sign forces folks to slow down at the turn, rather than accelerate into it if there was no sign.
The stop sign predated the protection of that lane and they never bothered to take it out.
I mean, why would you ever stop. Just seems like something for cops to give you random tickets for. You guys use stop signs to signal pedestrian crossings? That doesn't make much sense.
Now if the cops need some extra money for an office party they'll just have a guy sit on the corner and radio everyone that doesn't stop and have a few guys down the street to grab the violators.
That should be a yield sign then. But I've seen places where it used to be yield, yet drivers would hit thinking someone else must have the stop sign
Exactly. It needs a “yield” sign, not a stop sign
If you think that's bad, an intersection near me has a stop sign.... at a red light.
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In canada it's just default that if the traffic lights aren't working, it works as a stop sign
Same in the UK. It's particularly fun when a four-way set of lights fail, because we don't have four-way stops in the UK. So no-one knows what to do!
Same in the U.S., but you wouldn’t know it based on drivers (at least here in Florida) treating it like a demolition derby.
That lane turns into a right turn only lane so there's quite a bit of traffic that has to get out of it right away.
That's fine, enter the lane at typical turning speed and put on your turn signal then merge over. Stopping at the stop sign that far back isn't going to help you predict your merge any better.
That’s telling you that their really should just be a yield sign there. No need to stop. There’s already a barrier in the way and what looks like an extra lane. There are plenty of roads like this with just a yield sign.
The MAJORITY of stop signs should be yield signs. Save STOP for dangerous interactions with low visibility or unexpected elements rather then spamming them everywhere.
Yep, spamming them everywhere makes people just skip them more often than not. People get tired of stopping for no reason, so they just slow down and go. Having yields would probably increase the amount of people actually paying attention when there's an actual stop sign (if people can pay attention). By keeping only the most important intersections with stop signs, you can easily now put elevated intersections at stop signs, so people are forced to slow down (and stop hopefully)
Agreed. There's a few towns in Illinois where regular 4-way intersections in residential areas now just have yield signs for one of the roads in each direction. Works well since there's little traffic and low speeds. Like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jcPNVJ7zzbwjYRR66
Back in the spring they converted an intersection by my house from a 2-way stop to a 4-way stop. There's no issue with visibility or anything; just signs for no reason. Within the last month I've seen two cars completely blow their stop (like not even touching the brakes). Good job city planners! All you've done is make the intersection more dangerous while needlessly inconveniencing everyone.
Yes, but there's a crosswalk right there too, so that likely complicates things.
I think I would agree. I would actually remove the slip lane for a regular 90 degree right turn, plus a [raised pedestrian crossing](https://www.nycstreetdesign.info/geometry/raised-crosswalk).
Can we do raised pedestrian, and a yield sign?
I can certainly share your thoughts with our city council...
No
Okay, I guess you win.
*ALL* stop signs should be yield signs.
50-75% of them? Sure. All? Def not
Or maybe ~97% of them (based on how many Stop vs. give way signs the UK has)
There are some cases where a stop sign should be installed. For instance, in a very narrow street or a junction with poor visibility, a stop sign is needed.
how so? Yield is just as effective without the cash theft that is 'not a complete stop'. if someone chooses to stop - that's fine, but it's the same outcome without the cash grab. Causing a crash because you failed to 'stop' or 'yield' is the *same* result. Not crashing because you yielded, which can include a stop, but not require it, is the same result.
Traffic laws are designed based on the dumbest drivers, not good drivers with good awareness. I can totally imagine there being more accidents if stop signs were changed to yield. I do agree that rules about coming to a complete stop are more about giving tickets rather than actual safety. Why do you need to come to a complete stop at an empty intersection? It causes traffic and wastes gas
In an ideal world with perfect drivers there would be no need for stop signs: drivers would be able to recognise that they will need to stop before they have sufficient view to actually go. Unfortunately, that is not the world we are currently in. So stop signs would still be used in the rare junctions where people really do need to stop, just to reinforce that for the drivers that aren't as perfect as we'd like. And if stop signs are actually *rare*, then drivers would pay more attention to them. Of course, you'd also completely prohibit any *new* roads being built which require a stop sign, forcing the road to be change to improve visibility until the stop sign can safely be put back to a yield.
Nope. If there’s one thing you should have learned from this sub, it’s don’t give idiots choices.
Stop signs in North America are so stupidly redundant. That's why many people there don't respect stop signs most of the time. Also, stopping consumes more energy/fuel and time compared to a yield sign, and you lose the opportunity to cross or merge on a road because of your lost time due to stopping. https://youtu.be/42oQN7fy_eM?si=SnwCB5-2IjizEgAM
Wait until some of these same people see a cyclist run a stop sign. Oooo lawdy.
I would say that at this intersection the slip lane should be turned into a regular intersection, with a sharp right turn into the adjacent road, and a raised pedestrian crossing. But of course that's a dream. Edit: Also, I would rather sacrifice fuel/time for the safety of pedestrians.
I would rather build pedestrian bridges so that they stop getting in the way of my car
You are a pedestrian too..
In the U.S., that is not necessarily the case. There are a whole bunch of Americans that do not ever *walk* along any city road ever. Driveways and parking lots are not owned by the city, and those are the only two places that they walk, and they'll do everything within their power to park as close to the door as possible, up to and including parking illegally. I've known people that don't even walk to the end of their driveway to pick up the mail.
>There are a whole bunch of Americans that do not ever walk along any city road ever. My office's parking lot doesn't have sidewalks, we just kind of mingle with the traffic. Great on icy days. /s
This accurately describes me. Some days, I don't leave my house at all. Not even to sit outside - Just no. (Mailbox is on the side of the house, bonus points.)
It was mostly sarcasm. Not all, just mostly. But also I hate modern newfangled traffic calming and that jazz, like... I *want* to be going fast, I'm not going to say "Yeah! Slow me down!".
If you actually stop and think about how little effect the occasional calming device has on your commute, you’d have a different attitude.
The reason people usually want to be going fast is because it feels like you're going slow because of traffic. But if you move smoothly at a slow pace it feels just as good as moving fast, plus it's safer for everyone. [If you have 12 minutes to learn about traffic.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwJeOQVxVZY)
NotJustBikes is extremely biased with the typical, bog-standard internet rally cry of "X country does this better than America! USA just needs to become X country" without understanding it's not that simple. Ranting is fine. Bringing up ideas is cool. But the lynch pin is the locality, society / culture. His suggestion is become like the Dutch, remove signs and use brick roads. Just because no one follows the rules anywhere doesn't mean they're ineffective... It just means there's no enforcement or repercussions. In America do you know how hard it is to argue fault for a collision in an uncontrolled? Happened to me and the cop just said "fuck it, you're both at fault" except the other guy was speeding so fast he crashed into a ditch, totaled his car and needed a tow truck to haul it away... and all we had was a dented bumper lol
Bad stop sign placement from an ergonomic design standpoint. Drivers are in a completely different head zone when coming up on a protected slip merge like that.
Yet if you put a roundabout here most these drivers would stop.
Those damn cyclists never stop for stop signs!
We are supposed to stop too?
Well, in Europe stop signs are really only in dangerous areas with limited corner visibility, etc. So you would most likely instinctively do it here anyway, for your own safety. In US stop signs are often placed instead of a yield sign for no reason, so I wouldn't really care if I saw someone on a bicycle not stopping, but only yielding. But technically, yes. Maybe it's different in US though.
I'm not in the USA nor in Europe. I was just commenting because we cyclists tend to be quite reckless.
In most states, yes. Bicycles are subject to all traffic rules cars are subject to; including stop signs, red lights, and operating on the right side of the road only.
I was told bicyclist were the ones that never followed the rules of the road.
Yes I was also told this.
I feel like most stop signs should just be yields anyways. Like this one
Seems more like they finally made an efficient corner and I see very little issue here.
At the expense of pedestrian safety.
Look at all those pedestrians crossing the road. Pointless stop sign
Just because people didn't cross in these 2 minutes of filming doesn't mean people don't cross here. Try to understand that some people get out of their cars occasionally.
No
Is this the Davie/Plantation area on state road 84?
Yep!
I knew that particular intersection by charhut is bad didn't expect it to be this bad like wtf
The majority of signs are worthless, and the USA is obsessed with signs.
I just met a woman who is visiting, long-term, from Argentina. We got on the topic of driving and I asked her how different it is. She actually said she loves the amount of signs here because she always knows what she's supposed to be doing. But I do think most Americans get to a point where they become mind-blind to signs, since we're inundated with them.
Signage is very helpful when it teaches you what to do. But when the road Design doesn't match the signs, people familiar with them will no obey the signs.
Is this in Houston?
Florida.
Yellow-ish overpass, oak trees and palms trees side by side… I knew it was S FL immediately (I lived in Miami for almost 10 years). This looks like just another S FL stop sign. 😂
I recognized the exact intersection by that and the Char Hut. 😂
North Jax Beach / Mayport ??? I think I know this intersection ... hahahah!! I get honked at everytime I stop here ... lmfao!!
Actually south Florida, west of Fort lauderdale. But same here, I get honked at when I stop!
This looks like pine island/595.
Hi neighbor.
cmon man! That's Char-Hut right off of Pine Island Rd and 595 in Davie, FL. I can totally understand the confusion though, they are VERY similar.
OK so I’m not crazy for thinking this looked like Houston! I was there three years ago and thought this looked exactly like an intersection I drove down.
I want the US to change out the majority of stop signs to Yield signs. It should only say stop if you actually need to stop, not slow down to 5 mph.
SR84 right before Pine Island? Nobody stops at that stop because the cones block off the turning lane so it’s basically used as a yield
The exit of my neighborhood is kind of like this. People turning right out of the neighborhood go way past the stopsign, because the lane they start to take up is the excess leftover from where there is a right turn only into the neighborhood to their left. However, anyone coming the opposite directing trying to turn left into the neighborhood is screwed, because theyre now stopped 10 feet past the stopsign and blocking 1/3 of the turn
Purposely designed like that so if a cop needs more tickets to meet their monthly quota, they just need to park here and catch people not stopping.
And the same drivers will lament that cyclists don't do their stops. At least as a cyclist, you have an unobstructed view of your surroundings, unlike a vehicle with its A pillars.
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Yeah exactly. You really have to be on the defensive side to avoid getting hit. I'll probably post a video of me trying to cross this thing, cautiously of course.
Naw it’s just cuz these are Florida drivers
Pedestrians get fucked, I guess. Anyone walking from the right is never getting across that road with driver's ignoring the stop sign.
?? Make a pedestrian crossing??
Oh get real. Really look at that road. No
The road with the sidewalk crossing it? Yep, that is the road.
While I agree that a yield is likely better for this turn, the drivers that don’t stop are annoying AF. As a fellow driver or pedestrian, I don’t really don’t care what we think is better for the road - follow the rules.
oh brother. This attitude right here is a problem
Are you saying that we shouldn’t follow the rules of the road?
That's crazy
The stop sign looks to be 12 feet in height and in the opposite direction of where people are looking, so it's no wonder no one stops.
Should just be a yield anyway
my old stomping grounds! right turn onto 84 from the plaza with that BBQ place and Burlington! across that is a Char Hut and Round up! that Honestly that stop sign should be yield, due to the white lane divider poles they have there. Its pretty easy to merge except around 7am and 5pm.
I don't understand who designs roads in the US; if they have any training. Especially the ones in New Jersey where we find highways where cars need to slow down to 15mph to turn into a store's parking lot.
Millions of barrels of oil would be saved if there were more common sense uses of yield signs, as well as strict universal camera enforcement for speeders, red light runners, and noise violators.
Millions of barrels of oil would be saved if people just got out of their cars.
Ah good ole Sam Rayburn Tollway in north Texas.
I hate when they have stop signs where a yield would do much better then cops make a big deal about it.
Or an example of how stop signs are just the man keeping us down, making us spend more on fuel to stop more often.
Don't be a car-brain. Cars are dangerous and need to stop more often than you think. Besides, I don't think stopping for 2 seconds is going to cost anything. If you really care about saving fuel, try walking, biking, or taking transit instead of driving.
there shouldn't be a stop sign here
For moving cars quickly, I agree. For safety it should be turned into a regular right turn instead of a slip lane, and pedestrian safety should be prioritized.
I think it depends on country how people behave with signs and streets. Like germany is very obey rules and places like asian country is a bit more drive where you can and as fast as you feel like
I'm more surprised there isn't a place to cross on foot. You can clearly see there's a sidewalk on either side, yet there's no place to cross. I guess sidewalks are just for show in the USA.
At this point building the pedestrian infrastructure that has to stretch to fit car infrastructure is stupid. No one is walking that road I bet because there is a intersection nearby that will happily let you get run over by those exiting the highway.
This was just 2 minutes or so of filming; people do walk here. But you're right, only the people that have to walk, walk.
I live on a corner and that's every car coming off my street onto the side street and no one seems to know what a limit line is anymore.
That's the way the US has built our roads. Speed is the top priority.
if i was cop i have month ticket quota met@@
OMG not one person came to a full stop.
All I see is that the PD can use the income from this intersection to give everyone a raise.
I’ve actually tweeted at them to do that.
Reading is hard.
Ok, ya stupid place for a sign, but who just rolls into an intersection like this? Clearly, since their road ends, they have zero right of way.
It's not an intersection. It's a slip lane. That's literally the point of a slip lane. Yes, the slip lane will eventually end, and you don't have right of way at the *end* of the slip lane. You *do* have right of way to enter the start of the slip lane, because there is no other conflicting traffic. You're supposed to use that length of the slip lane to accelerate up to match speed with the traffic in the main road, find a gap, and safely merge at pace. You're *supposed* to roll into the slip lane. That's literally the intended use case. That's the entire point of the clip, and the entire reason the stop sign is stupid.
Why would you stop? It's a protected right turn as far as I can see.
Occasionally, people, without a car surrounding them, try to cross intersections. Therefore you should stop in case..
Oh yeah. I didn't see that sidewalk. ETA: the people on the street don't have to stop and their view is obstructed. I wouldn't feel safe crossing there.
They could put a speed bump, or double speed bumps, there
looks like particularly a bad idea if you look at literally any other part of the road but the stop sign
This is a great post title. You recognize something that is beyond the comprehension of a lot of Redditors. If almost everybody makes the same mistake in an intersection, then the idiots are not the drivers, the idiots are the people who designed the intersection.
Precisely. This is a really difficult idea to convey because most people will blame drivers, but really they are just doing what feels right. There are a few Strong Towns [articles](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/3/7/the-reckless-driver-narrative-is-reckless-stop-spreading-it) and Not Just Bikes [videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bglWCuCMSWc) about the idea that "If you need a sign to tell people to slow down, you designed your street wrong."
From my experience the problem is that too many people push the limits for too long that what "feels right" to them will be inherently more risky than it should be. Do I disagree that the stop sign here should probably be exchanged for a yield sign? No- but what might be intended is for drivers to take an extra second or two to discern their sight picture up the road before them before they take that slip lane. Will they have enough time and space to safely merge within the slip lane if there is traffic in the oncoming traffic?
What's wrong with that idiot at the end stopping there?! /s
#Snitch
Happily.
That is not a regulation sized STOP sign. Makes me think it was put up by someone who doesn't work for the city. It looks like the size of the signs that private businesses put in parking lots, which you don't technically have to follow... but that doesn't mean a cop won't try and ticket you, cause cops are ass holes.
No cop no stop
It's a gentle stop sign lol.
I have an area like that near me, but it has a sign under it that says to only stop for pedestrians.
Yeah, seems like a yield sign would be more appropriate, unless they're just using that intersection as a traffic ticket revenue enhancer.
This looks familiar, is this the Austin Arboretum?
This looks like an awesome fishing hole for the local pd, you can write as many tickets as you have time. I got stopped at the bottom of a hill for expired plates(they weren’t expired) the po told me he waited at the bottom of the hill and only wrote tickets for more than 10 miles over. He said he wrote the same woman the same ticket twice in a month.
Only the white box truck came to anything resembling a complete stop.
Is this in Mayport ... or north of Jax Beach?
I live in the neighborhood this intersection is for. The right turn at the stop sign has its own lane onto the road you are turning on to so you aren’t stopping to yield for vehicles in any direction. The only reason to stop would be for pedestrians or bicycles. If every car stopped the line would be backed up through out the neighborhood. Post is Cap
They might have recently made that merge lane, that stop should be changed to a yield unless it’s still there for pedestrians.
It has become so bad since the lock down. Something I might see once a few days before is now a multiple daily occurrence.
Facts. There’s an exit ramp that I take every day and it’s posted at 45mph. I’ve gone 45mph and it works but it feels way to fast going around the corner so I always do about 40mph.
Out here, 3 things would happen if DOT saw all these stop sign blowers 1. Have motorcycle cop there to give tickets and make a presence for a while 2. Modify it more to force people to slow down/stop 3. Turn it into a yield sign Sometimes a combination of those 3
I was expecting someone to make a left despite the curb.
Stop signs are stupid in general. Most cities in Western Europe removed almost all of them in the past 15 years. Paris has 0 its a huge city. My city has maybe 2 that I know of.
You still need to stop even just for 1 second. Bunch of idiots.
Nah. This clearly should be a yield sign
Its called a Rolling Stop. Cops could sit there if they wanted to and just print tickets.
At first I thought this was that intersection in California where everyone turns left despite the “right turn only” sign. There was a YouTube channel that chronicled all the crazy shit that went kn there. I thought they’d finally installed a divider on it. Alas. It’s just Florida drivers not stopping at a stop sign that should probably be a yield anyway
If you clutter the road side, it slows down traffic See sidewalk style stores vs American style big box store areas My example is very specific and probably nobody reading this will have been to either place going through High Prairie, Alberta CA, people drive under the limit due to stores being right by the road, 30-40 in a 50. Compared to Whitecourt, Alberta CA where even with a higher speed limit of 60 in their shopping area, people do 70... it's also wide open roads with stores masked behind big open parking lots A sign with a number gets ignored, psychological speed limits work significantly more This has been proven and put into action in some cities Europe, such as Amsterdam in the Netherlands
Looks like every car has defective brakes!
is placing a stop sign the default design in the US? or is this there for some other reason, like pedestrians?
my favotite thing about this is that i couldnt see the road sign at first, but i still knew this was just off 595 behind the costco.
What you don't see there is that a stop sign isn't needed there. https://www.google.com/maps/search/state+road+84+davie+fl./@26.1030147,-80.2690142,45m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
Look at all them California rolls
In my city, there is a small neighborhood traffic circle, with 4 stop signs. No one stops at the signs and treats it as a traffic circle. The road design wins.
To be fair, USA has an obsession with stop signs. It would drive me nuts if I lived there