Road Rules: Cyclists can legally treat stop signs as yield signs starting October 1

There’s a new law I want to tell you about (or, more accurately, a change to a current law), but before I do, I’m asking you to have an open mind. And be patient; to give this change of law the attention it deserves, I’m going to split this into two parts. Sometimes the safest strategies seem, on the surface to be counterintuitive, and I think this is one of those situations.

Okay, ready? Starting October 1, cyclists in Washington will be allowed to treat stop signs as yield signs. I’ll let that sink in for a minute. Already I can hear the voices of cyclists and drivers in my head pushing against this crazy idea.

Cyclists: Are you kidding me? Cars are already the greatest threat to my survival on the road. Why would I run a stop sign and increase that risk?

Drivers: Are you kidding me? Cyclists want to ride on the road, but then they don’t want to follow the same rules. How is that fair?

Or maybe you are one of the people that’s known about this law for years, wishing it would come to Washington. That’s right. This isn’t a new idea; it’s just new to us. Back in 1982, Idaho passed a very similar law. For decades, they were the only state in the country to allow cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs, in what became known as the “Idaho Stop.” Not until 2017 did another state adopt a similar law, when Delaware established what they call the “Delaware Yield.” Since then, several states have adopted some form of the stop-as-yield law for cyclists.

Why are states now adopting this law? Maybe a better question would be, “Why has it taken states so long?” There’s evidence that, despite most people’s gut reaction to the idea, the Idaho Stop increases both safety and efficiency. In the year after Idaho established the law, bicycle injuries dropped 14 percent.

Several studies have confirmed Idaho’s results, the most prominent one coming from Jason Meggs, a transportation researcher at UC Berkeley. Meggs compared bicycle crashes in Boise, Idaho, and Sacramento, California. He chose Sacramento because of similarities to Boise in factors that affect cycling: Topography, infrastructure, weather and demographics.

The primary difference between the two cities, from a cycling perspective, is the Idaho Stop law. He found cycling was 30-60 percent safer in Boise. Comparisons of other cities had more dramatic results. As an example, the study showed that cycling in Boise is 150-252 times safer than riding in Bakersfield, California. Not only is this research supportive of the Idaho Stop, it also lets me know I should probably avoid bike rides in Bakersfield.

We have the data showing that stop-as-yield reduces crashes, but numbers alone can’t explain why this is a good idea. Running a stop sign in a car should be, if you’re paying attention at all, a bit frightening. On a bike it’s terrifying. A conflict between a car and a bike is about as equally matched as a fight between a grizzly bear and a water balloon. But this law doesn’t legalize red light running. It’s about yielding, and really, a stop sign is just a very extreme version of yielding.

Here’s the new change to the law: “…a person operating a bicycle and approaching a stop sign shall either: (A) Follow the requirements for approaching a stop sign… or (B) Follow the requirements for approaching a yield sign…” We know what it means to stop, but maybe a refresher on yielding would be helpful. As described later in the same law, the actions at a yield sign include slowing to a reasonable speed, giving right-of-way to vehicles in the intersection and stopping if necessary for safety.

The law does not give permission for a cyclist to carelessly blow through an intersection, but as it turns out, that isn’t a problem anyway.

We’ll explore that in part two, along with the outcome of an experiment where I rode through an intersection without stopping and some reasons why you, whether a cyclist or a driver, might like this law.

Doug Dahl is a manager with the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, Region 11 and publishes TheWiseDrive.com.