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?
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.
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.
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.
Seems like a bit of a broad brush to paint with my friend. Plenty of places are building roundabouts
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?
