I’m from the UK where in general there’s only a stop sign if it’s needed, such as a junction where you can see absolutely nothing on one side. Otherwise usually there’s a give way line instead, to let people slow the car right down to look, but not need to stop if it’s unnecessary.
Whenever I see a video of an American street, it seems like there’s a stop sign everywhere I’d expect there to be a give way line. Surely this is inefficient as stopping and starting increases emissions, and stops the flow of traffic.
Is it really just the American government doesn’t expect drivers to look properly? Is it so the police can give people tickets for not quite stopping but still doing the junction completely safely?
This might be a stupid answer, but I genuinely think Americans couldn’t handle that system. We already have problems with people not stopping properly at stop signs. If we had the “give way” system too many people would just ignore it and cause accidents.
I realize this is super pessimistic, but I think it’s true. We have a handful of roundabouts and people always screw them up.
I don’t think Americans are inherently dumber or anything, I just think our licensing exam is laughably easy. You literally just parallel park, then drive in a square where you encounter one traffic light, and one stop sign. Exam was over in 5 minutes. Here’s your license.
Reading more of these comments it’s clear we need to invest heavily in biking and transit infrastructure so taking away some idiots drivers license doesn’t damn them to poverty
Biking infrastructure is only useful in big cities where your distance to work could be quite short (within 5 miles or so). The average American commute distance is 41 miles. It just doesn’t make sense to build out bike infrastructure very many places in the US.
Trains and changing the roads to make it easier for cars to drive themselves make a lot more sense.
The majority of trips taken in the US in cars is 3 miles or less, completely walkable/cycleable/public-transportation-able. I don’t think anyone would say no one should drive 41 miles in order to go to work, but it doesn’t mean regional and local infrastructure especially in urban areas shouldn’t aim towards these goals because that is where the bulk of ALL general vehicle traffic is.
These two things are not incompatible. In fact, it would benefit those who do drive because everyone doesn’t need to drive for many of their trips, and won’t because there are accessible and attractive alternatives.
The problem with North America is that it is closed to trying new things because it believes that its way of doing things is better than the rest of the world.
For example, roundabouts could help with traffic flow and reduce accidents, as they have been proven to do in the rest of the world. But unfortunately, North American drivers are absolutely terrified of them, so cities will not implement them.
The problem with North America is that it is closed to trying new things because it believes that its way of doing things is better than the rest of the world.
Speak for yourself there, mister. Miami put in a ton of roundabouts before I left 12 years ago, and I see now every time I go back. And the rural community I live in now just made a new one. We also have bigger rotaries. Maybe it’s not all of North America that’s afraid of trying something new? Maybe it’s just your town?
Seems like a bit of a broad brush to paint with my friend. Plenty of places are building roundabouts
One explanation could be that many American cities are designed in a grid shape, making many 4 way crossings of equally important roads.
European roads are more often like a tree structure with one road being the main one and with more 3 way intersections, and where the smaller roads have to yield.
Obviously both continents have both types, but due to the city design, USA has many more 4 way crossings.
First, traffic circles are rare here, and grid patterns more common, so we have many more simple intersections of roughly equivalent roads. This likely set a precedent where the default choice was simply to avoid trying to determine who should give way, and just tell everyone to stop and then follow a set of rules that were dependent on the moment. Fuel economy would not have been a concern at all.
If it doesn’t actively cause problems, even a sub optimal standard can still settle in. Then, once cultural inertia takes over, it can literally be dangerous to try to change ingrained driving habits, and even if it’s not strictly dangerous, in a large country with vast swathes where virtually everyone drives, simplifying the decision tree is important for traffic flow.
For instance, this is not directly related to stop-vs-give-way, but it’s illustrative of how standards become sticky even when there’s s better way. There is a very busy at-grade intersection near where i live that became infamous. It has a combination of having multiple lanes on each road, speed limits nearing the top of what’s allowed on “normal” roads (ie not a freeway/motorway), large numbers of young drivers, and large numbers of wealthier drivers. It became known, hyperbolically, as “the most dangerous and expensive intersection in the world” because of the large number of accidents that involved expensive cars, and it was a nightmare to navigate. The insurance companies and the traffic planners wanted to try to fix it.
So they did all their studies and spent millions to turn it from as signal-controlled intersection to a “Michigan Left.” Drivers were confused and angry and the lack of understanding meant that people hated it. They were confused, so there were still a good number of accidents, many of them at higher speed since drivers who did understand the concept would not be ready for someone turning against traffic. Many people simply avoided it, clogging nearby routes in a way that more than mooted the advantages of the new layout.
In the end, the government left the new infrastructure as an option, but reopened the old turn lanes and set the signals back. An objectively better layout in ideal situations was an utter failure when actually imposed on the American driving public. Using more stop signs than we “need” is similar in that people expect a certain behavior and driving habits are built around it, and switching to the English system would probably create as many problems as it solves, while also being expensive for whichever generation would have considered it.
If there isn’t a sign people assume they have the right of way. That’s just how the roads work. I’ve even seen signs bellow the stop sign saying cross traffic does not stop. A “rolling stop” where you sort of look and slow down but don’t actually stop can easily get you a ticket.
People still ignore stop signs or red lights often resulting in accidents.
I think it comes down to litigation. Our country serves as a work program for lawyers.
In theory, traffic engineers determine where signs and signals need to be placed. However, If someone gets in an accident and can claim that it was caused by the lack of a stop sign, then they’ll sue the state or local government. Even if the government wins the case, it costs money to defend. It probably quickly became cheaper to just put stop signs everywhere rather than risk going to court.
Honestly, now that I think about it, I’m not sure if there’d be any difference if they pulled the stop signs. Many people will already blow through a stop sign if they think they can get away with it, even when there’s someone else already going through the intersection. Maybe there’d be some more accidents if they removed some stop signs, but maybe fear would keep more people in line.
In Germany we have right-before-left on unmarked junctions. I have the feeling that something like that just does not exist in the US? Oh and does it exist in the UK as left-before-right?
