The Stop Lover's Manifesto

I once heard a wise man say that all of the stop signs with white around them were optional. This might be true: I am not a lawyer or a police officer. However I’m going to assume that the great wizards of urban planning and traffic management had a little something different in mind when they put all of these red and white signs up in our neighborhoods. So if they aren’t optional, whatever are we to do? Apparently the jury seems to still be out on that one.

Take the example of the timid motorist: they willingly sacrifice their right of way to just about everything: cars, trucks, bikes, zombie bunnies

(ok, I’d gladly let the zombie bunny go too.) It is not quite clear why one would voluntarily forfeit their right of way to a bike of all things, yet it happens quite frequently. Occasionally the driver is distracted and misses their turn or they’ve never seen a bike before and they want to take a picture. However more than likely they hesitate because it appears courteous to wait or they think the bike won’t stop. While courtesy is nice, as in giving 3ft to pass, excessive courtesy above and beyond the letter of the law just isn’t necessary. Cyclists count on cars to stick to the game plan; that being the normal rules of driving. Doing so helps them navigate that crazy asphalt jungle out there in the safest manner possible. If the bike doesn’t want to play by the rules, well courtesy’s probably the last thing they deserve. In most places the law says stop and yield to traffic already in the intersection (cars and bikes); sticking to that game plan is courteous enough.

As the timid stoppers are wont to approach the line, the rollers on the other hand love the line. They’d park their car on top of, or preferably beyond, the line of the intersection all day if they could: the view must be great from 10 ft past the stop sign. There are various typologies of this behavior, including:

• The slow roller: they pull up and stop briefly and then start inching forward almost imperceptibly; practically the track stand of the automotive world.

• The late stopper: they miss the stop completely but are socially conditioned enough to know to stop no matter how late. Interestingly, these drivers will often look at you from mid-intersection like you are the asshole.

• The slow roller, no looker: a variation on the slow roller, these drivers pull up and start moving forward all the while not looking once in the direction of oncoming traffic. There could be an entire bus full of George Hincapies bearing down on them and they wouldn’t ever notice until it is too late.

Last but not least are the stop runners. Everyone has run a stop sign at some point in their life either in their car or on a bike: there’s no piety in the realm of stop signs. Sometimes you miss it because the sign is lurking behind a large bush or parked car. Other times you just glance down and whoops…

Unintentional stop sign running I suppose constitutes an accident, the consequences can be severe but everyone can make mistakes. On the other hand there is intentional stop sign running: gunning it to beat someone to the line or just blatantly disregarding anyone else potentially entering the intersection. I’ve seen cars do it and I’ve seen cyclists do it. In the French Enlightenment sense this violates our Social Contract in a seemingly small, yet significant way. If everyone were to just quit stopping at stop signs traffic would go much slower, accident rates would increase, people would never get to work on time, pizzas would always be late and hipsters would be everywhere. No one wants this pandemonium (except for maybe the cyclist, weaving through traffic is much easier with the cars all jammed up and stopped…but I digress.)

So as a driver approaching that intersection or stop sign, take a good look at that cyclist heading your way. They could be someone’s father, mother, daughter, son, neighbor, teacher, best friend, team mate etc. Or they could be a prick who wants to run the intersection too. Or they could be coked out of their mind, on their way to a really big party, too drunk to be sure what is happening to them, as you can see in the example below. Why hit that person, they’re in enough trouble as it is? 

But all that aside, they’re likely just riding their bike and chances are they will stop too if needed or at least ride past soon enough and the world won’t have spun out of orbit in the meantime. So give that Stop sign a little love next time, play by the rules, lay off the nose candy and it should be smooth sailing….or driving….or riding—whatever.