I’ve got a gripe with stop signs: they are everywhere, but they aren’t always necessary. At the vast majority of intersections in America without a traffic light or roundabout, there is at least one stop sign instructing drivers to come to a full and complete stop before continuing on their way. But we don’t always need to stop, and drivers already know it.
We’ve all seen it. Drivers rolling through stop signs, flaunting the standards their driving instructor told them to do at every intersection, come to a full stop and wait for three seconds, even if there is no other traffic in the intersection. Many drivers are rolling through, stopping briefly, or otherwise passing through the intersection after assessing the safety of entering —that’s the critical component.
Even though we might not always come to a full stop, we know it is dangerous to blatantly run a stop sign at full speed. Under good conditions, at most intersections, it is relatively straightforward to assess the safety of entering the intersection by simply slowing down and observing the surroundings without coming to a complete stop; however, the law disagrees.
I recently got a ticket for rolling through a stop sign. When I ran the stop sign, it was around 11 p.m., there was no other traffic or pedestrians, and I had a clear view of the intersection and its surroundings. I had enough knowledge to proceed through the intersection safely. Why should I be penalized when I made an informed decision about my safety and the safety of my fellow road users? I was ordered to appear at the Atlanta Municipal Court or pay a $200 fine, even though I didn’t put anyone at risk.
Drivers know it is dangerous to continue at full speed through an intersection with a stop sign, and drivers can visually assess the safety of an intersection before entering it. The stop sign does not do much more for drivers than notify them of an upcoming intersection, and drivers easily ignore the stop instruction.
Instead, stop signs should be used to indicate that at the upcoming intersection, there is an additional reason why a driver should come to a stop, like a blind curve, an unsighted hill or an unconventional intersection. If stop signs were limited to these situations, it would make their message, “STOP,” stronger than ever before. Rather than being blinded by the quantity of stop signs, I would be more likely to comply when I saw a stop sign because I would know that it really was necessary.
The replacement of many stop signs on the road currently depends on the type of intersection they are located at. Stop signs typically come in two varieties: minor-road-only and multi-way stop control. Minor-road-only stop signs are at intersections where a minor road intersects with a more heavily traveled road. The stop signs inform drivers of the minor road that they must yield to the traffic on the major road. Multi-way stop signs are typically located at the intersection of roads of equal importance, directing drivers to stop from every direction of approach. In each of these cases, there is rarely a need to come to a complete stop to determine if it is safe to enter.
At minor-road-only intersections, stop signs could easily be replaced by yield signs, allowing drivers to determine the safety of entering the intersection and proceeding without stopping if able.
Replacements become a little trickier for multi-way stop signs. In many cases, it would be possible to designate one of the crossing roads as a main road and use yield signs on the other roads. Installing a roundabout would also be a viable solution here, although it may not always be economically feasible. If there is a situation where a high-traffic intersection requires equal priority in all directions and a roundabout or traffic light is not an option, those intersections could need to remain as four-way stops.
The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, an advisory manual published by the Federal Highway Administration, prescribes that at intersections where it is not necessary to come to a complete stop, “consideration should be given to using less restrictive measures such as YIELD signs,” but states seem to have overestimated where a full stop is necessary. In many situations, it is not.
Decreasing the use of stop signs can also reduce the number of stop-starts while driving and lead to an increase in vehicle efficiency when compounded over millions of drivers. A professor at George Mason University calculated that removing just one stop sign from every four-way stop would result in a decrease of about one billion gallons of gasoline, equivalent to 2.7 days of consumption in America.
Ultimately, though, reducing the number of stop signs is about altering the roadways to better fit how we naturally use them, easing an everyday nuisance in our lives and preventing frivolous tickets for people who are following common-sense safety rules rather than strictly adhering to the law.