Four wheels, stop; two wheels, yield

Aspen should proceed with a plan to let cyclists treat stop signs as yields. Astudy shows it can boost safety.

In the list of great debates of our time, it ranks somewhere between abortion and whether Thin Mints are better than Samoas.

We’re talking about cyclists obeying traffic laws — a topic that brings out impassioned arguments on all sides.

We were intrigued by an Aspen Times story this week on a proposal to change local traffic laws to allow bicyclists to yield at stop signs rather than come to a full stop.

Dubbed the “Idaho Stop” or “stopas-yield,” the practice lets cyclists treat stop signs as yield signs assuming— and this is the important part — it is safe to do so.

Surprisingly, the practice makes roads safer, according to a 2008 University of California at Berkeley study of data from the 30 years the law has been in place in Boise.

If a law change could improve safety and make life easier for cyclists, we’re all for giving it a shot. The change may not work for all intersections, but surely there are plenty of spots in Aspen (and elsewhere) where it could.

We have argued before that cyclists do themselves no favors in the eyes of others when they flout traffic laws. But we know from experience that laws designed for cars may not be designed with cyclists in mind.

Car engines tap horsepower that reaches into the hundreds at the mere touch of an accelerator. Drivers’ vision and sound can be obscured as they sit in the cabin of their car. Bikes, on the other hand, perform best when a rider is able to maintain momentum— even if slowing to a near-stop to check for oncoming traffic. They also have the advantage of putting riders in better position to see and hear what’s going on around them.

Certainly there are busy intersections where the stop-as-yield rule won’t work. But the same can be said for jaywalking.

As much as you might argue that pedestrians should obey signs in crosswalks, the truth is there are many times where it’s simply unnecessary or impractical. (Denver’s 16th Street Mall and its numerous cross streets during non-rush periods come to mind.)

We’ve long supported a share-theroad philosophy when it comes to cars and bikes. But that doesn’t mean automobiles and bicycles have to share the same traffic laws if more sensible alternatives exist.

If Aspen adopts the new traffic law, we’d be eager to see what it does for safety and for the number of people who decide to hop on a bike instead of behind the wheel.