(Replying to PARENT post)

«make it a 4-way stop»

You may be unaware, but 4-way stop signs are very uncommon outside of the US. In fact, in the UK they have always been formally prohibited by the Department for Transport in 2002.

As a European driver, I discovered the existence of 4-way stop signs when I moved to the US, and I have always found them dangerous in a counter intuitive way: drivers are so used to 4-way stop intersections, that they may adopt the habit of (1) doing rolling stops and (2) assuming an intersection with a stop sign is almost always a 4-way stop. Both of these 2 habits are dangerous... At least that's my personal experience. I prefer the consistency of my home country where every stop is a 2-way stop, therefore I'm never surprised by non-stopping traffic at an intersection.

👤mrb🕑7y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

> rolling stops

What's special about a 4-way stop here? And a rolling stop is good enough to prevent a high-speed collision anyway.

> assuming an intersection with a stop sign is almost always a 4-way stop

Around here there is a good mix and I don't think that happens.

> I prefer the consistency of my home country where every stop is a 2-way stop

Well I personally hate going through 2-way-stop intersections that are over 25mph.

👤Dylan16807🕑7y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Yeah where I live (the outer sunset neighborhood of San Francisco) it feels like half the stops are 2-way and the other half are 4-way. As a cyclist this is dangerous for me, because if I go through an intersection where I am not stopped but cars are subject to the stop, they will stop, not see me, then start going. So consistency is key!
👤idoh🕑7y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

There's a 4-way give way junction here [1]. That's the closest you will get in the UK. It means give way to anything that is in the junction before you are, but the actual effect is for cyclists to frequently be aggressively hooted at and nearly run over by cars.

[1] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.2190575,0.1178374,105m/dat...

👤mnw21cam🕑7y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

The "4-way" or "All-way" addition helps a little ( https://i.imgur.com/dzRksUw.jpg ), but I've made the mistake at least once or twice myself.
👤afterburner🕑7y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

At least 4-way stops have the same basic rules throughout the US (cars go in order of arrival).

2-way stops do not:

Consider the case where the first car to arrive is turning left, but cannot do so due to traffic on the main road. Then a car arrives from the opposite direction going straight. Who is supposed to go first? In some states it's the car that reached the stop sign first, in others it's the car going straight.

👤aidenn0🕑7y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

That's crazy. I find myself frequently having to pause, look around, make sure, etc (and the pausing and looking around in itself is dangerous) so often because of the discrepancy. But as someone born and raised here I've never considered an alternative, and am shocked that the alternative is so simple!
👤daxfohl🕑7y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

The other thing about 4-way stop intersections in the US is that the right-of-way rules when two vehicles arrive at the intersection at the same time is not quite what one would expect. That is, the vehicle to the right has the right of way. If the intersection was controlled by a roundabout, then the vehicle to the left would have the right of way.
👤u801e🕑7y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

They do exist in Germany.
👤nraynaud🕑7y🔼0🗨️0