San Francisco city official to introduce policy to decriminalize Safe Stop Cycling

According to Streetsblog

[San Francisco] Supervisor John Avalos plans to introduce a policy urging the SFPD to let people on bikes treat stop signs as yield signs. It could legitimize the safe, practical maneuver already practiced by the vast majority of people on bikes, which is legal in Idaho.

This isn't the Idaho Stop, as it doesn't allow cyclists to treat red lights as stop signs, and it isn't even the Colorado Safe Stop, because treating a stop sign as a yield sign will still be illegal. That's a state law and San Francisco can't overrule it. But it will basically decriminalize such behavior by creating a policy that would “make citations for bicyclists who safely yield at stop signs the lowest law enforcement priority.”

Further weakening it is this

the non-binding stop sign legislation would need support from SFPD officials to have a substantial impact.

Still, it's a step above the status quo.

Comments

[DE]

It's at least an awareness by a large city that cyclists can safely yield at a stop sign, and might counter some of the "Idaho is small and that's why it works there but it won't work in a city" attitude.

This is part of a debate that really needs to spread so that cyclists who yield the right-of-way, who are the majority of cyclists, aren't lumped in with all those "scofflaw cyclists who blow through red lights" that you hear so much about on the Internets but really don't see that often.

I'm pretty much fine with it being illegal to go through red lights. I can see why jurisdictions would be afraid to enact that.

Hope it passes and catches on.

[washcycle]

I agree it. If it's law in Idaho, San Francisco and several towns in Colorado, then it neutralizes that "Well, Boise is small potatoes" argument.

[Mike]

@DE: of course it's already legal to go through red lights in many states, e.g., VA (because sensors for red lights are extremely car-focused)

[Crickey7]

I would not hold my breath.

[Smedley Burkhart]

I think this sort of thing leads the imposition of literal interpretations of traffic laws on cyclists, while that for motor vehicles remains "understood."