Stop Signs Suck and We Should Get Rid of Them 

I know you're not supposed to laugh at your own jokes, but I laughed so hard at this several times as I was editing it. When is our interview scheduled to go live on your channel?

It was a good joke

And the elephant was hidden by the A-pillar!

I cracked up man that was hilarious

@@NotJustBikes it really was a good joke. Got a wet chuckle from me

Yeah, coming from NZ where they're also rare and now living in Canada, I'm finding this out first hand. They're in so many places where Aus/NZ would use a Give Way sign that they just kind of blur together in Canada. It's also not helpful that the Canadians use 4 way stop signs where the rule is that whoever got to the intersection first has right of way. Madness.

Same here in Sweden. Stop signs are rare enough that almost everyone respects them. Yield signs are also respected and plentyful, which is good because the standard rule of "give way to the right" in unmarked intersections does not seem to have stuck very well from the driver's education in most people.

@@thunderball44 why not just use a roundabout than use whatever a 4 way stop intersection is.

I came here to say the same thing. Plus the Belgian stop on traffic lights is technically correct but they should take a lesson from the Australian version where it has 3 black spots overlaid on the stop sign to indicate if the traffic lights aren't working then you treat it like a stop sign.

@@ElizabethJones-pv3sj That only is a thing in NSW. No such thing exists in VIC.

It also helps that I lived in Brussels for two years. ;)

He was not with the Belgium remark though. It’s just chaos over here.

The stop sign on the traffic light is for when the traffic light doesn’t work.

RoadRage brussel used be great... as it was dutch speaking. But slowly The wallonians (French speakers) took over.

I would like to live in belgium since police dont steal your electric skateboard there unfortunately in the netherlands they do because of shitty laws electric one wheel is legal here because they could not imagine it being motorised when making the rules so according to the rules it cant be a vehicle the one wheel users still get stoped by police and theg steal them too although they do give it back after 3 months or longer which is not the case for electric skateboards they destroy it... very nice country indeed....

Same here.

@@yvarmarkdeboer7118 maar echt he😂😂😂

Ja maar echt 😂 ben een paar keer in de US geweest en dat voelt zo onveilig daar

Daarom ben ik geabonneerd

Inderdaad, Het is echt zeer interessant om zo het buitenland te bekijken.

They're waaaay overused, and for this reason, most people (myself included) don't have a great deal of respect for them. I actually do a better stop for level crossings with lights and gates (habit - I'm a bus driver) than many stop signs. Easily 80% could be replaced with yield signs. Uncontrolled intersections wouldn't work in many places because Americans drivers aren't smart enough to handle that

Lmao out here in US people don’t even yield anymore. They just pop into traffic and expect everyone else not to crash.

This isn’t always the case - in the UK, stop signs are quite rare here too, and stop signs are usually only put in when they’re actually needed. However, despite (or possibly in part due to) their rarity, a large minority of drivers don’t actually properly stop anyway. If you have an old intersection in the middle of the New Forest that causes cyclists to be in a driver’s blind spot on approach, and drivers don’t stop at the stop sign, you can begin to see the issue…

Yeah, in most US intersections the lower-priority road gets a stop sign BY DEFAULT. Thus, it is more reliably a priority indicator than a genuine need to stop. Also, Oregon recently they passed a law allowing bicycles to yield at stop signs if the intersection is clear, but keep in mind this is as an exception to the default traffic rules.

Its true, A Stop Sign is used in basically every single intersection that isn't signaled.... all of them.... You cant go down a middle of nowhere road that meets another middle of nowhere road, with nothing but empty fields for miles, without hitting a damn stop sign. You would see the oncoming car long before the stop sign itself.... but better put one in anyways. because North America

The stop lines are so that large trucks can make the turn if a car is stopped there but it’s still rarely enough room

Yes! Thank you. Recently a building by me put up a dumpster at a T intersection so you couldn't see incoming traffic that doesn't have to stop. I have a roll an entire car length beyond the stop line before I can even see if it's safe to proceed

And don't ever stop in the crosswalk during a driving test, or you will flunk. Even police will do a "California stop" at stop signs.

Stop signs are legal issue. If there is an accident and there is no light or stop signs, The city can and will be sued for millions for negligence .

@@jaimefish173 Another thing I like about the Netherlands: When I first came here, I noticed that none of the canals have railings to stop people from falling in them. I commented that the city could get sued for that. The answer I got: "No they would not. The city would just call you an idiot for falling in the first place." They have an attitude of just don't be an idiot, while in the US the attitude is everyone is an idiot.

Azivegu that is pretty accurate yes! The world is so much easier and relaxed if instead you getting sued for others being idiots, the idiots get called out for being idiots and get a “what have you learned” speech.

​@@Azivegu you'll notice in amsterdam the sidewalk is never next to the canal, it's always on the side with the houses. essentially, you're not meant to walk next to the water. the canals are open because historically they were used for docking. the center used to be filled with boats everywhere. even though it's much less now it's still used as such. sometimes you hear about cars rolling into the canals because they weren't in park. the city never gets sued, the owner ends up getting billed by the fire department for being a dumbass lmao

@@jaimefish173 If only people would take some responsibilities in traffic themselves...

I'm sure you already know about the channel called 'City Beautiful' and 'Armchair Urbanist', but if you don't, they're fantastic resources as well. In return, if you know of any other channels, please tell me :D

@@saketjawaji1557 Thank you this was very useful.

@@saketjawaji1557 Melissa & Chris Bruntlett?!

Would you like to come and redo my town?

It did, welcome aboard!

I only know 2 intersections with stop signs in my area. Both demand you to stop because right up to the intersection there is a wall blocking the view for 1 side. The only time stop signs should be used! When stopping to be able to see, is actually required.

@@tardvandecluntproductions1278 I'm glad my home country of Russia has similar standards. I like being able to proceed thru a junction if it's obviously clear without needing to stop and waste more petrol to get back up to speed. There's a few stop signs in my area. They're either at junctions with bad visibility, or at level crossings with no gates, barriers or even lights. Though there's a few level crossings where even a stop sign is unnecessary, because there's a closed railway gate right next to the road, and it's easy to tell whether a train is coming through or not just by it's position.

And because we have such a car first society in Canada, drivers get pissy when you roll through a stop sign on a bike...when in reality you're basically going at the same speed as most drivers rolling through them too! But...drivers like to target cyclists because they find cyclists annoying and an impedance to traffic!

@@tardvandecluntproductions1278 This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about when I said: A stop sign is saying "We designed this intersection so badly it can only be made safe by coming to a complete stop.". Don't put a stop sign where the driver can see, make sure he can see. I bet the truck drivers can't see very well even if they did stop right?

@@newperve I understand that too frequent and inappropiate use of stop signs are shit but usage of stop signs in blind intersections is the right call. Sometimes you have to use a stop sign because the thing thats creating the blind spot could be an entire building or a hill and thats not something you can really workaround unless you want to evict people and pay thousands in destruction efforts.

Yolanda. Be cool.

lucky you didn't cause a wreck

In the middle of the intersection? What a complete dumbass. I'd be terrified of being in a car with that instructor especially if they were behind the wheel

@@willdpe1256 “There was no traffic whatsoever”

@@semidecent4395 Thank you Yolanda. You have to stop at every Stop sign. Especially when taking your driver's test .

I found that noteworthy as well.

Thats why the self-driving car most likely will never find a foothold in Europe (And then West Europe and Scandinavia specifically), because the roads and the city design aren't set up for it (Roads and streets aren't wide enough basically). You can say the same about Japan.

@@nickdentoom1173 Why would you need wide streets? Just like smaller cars are more normal in Europe, so will smaller self driving cars be. Not to mention at by the point we have self driving cars then they will all be electrict meaning a smaller car is more prefered for effeciency. And if infrastructure and technology move the right way we can have dirt cheap small self driving ubers for the city, high speed rails between cities for longer travel and only people living in the countryside will have the need for bigger EV-cars.

Ah, but do self-driving cars have blind spots ?

@@FlushGorgon we dont know yet

No citations? Where’s the research to back up what you say?

@@larryparis925 this is a youtube comment

@@pprav987 A comment in which you made numerous claims. With no information to back up those claims. By the way, I know of a town in Switzerland that was taken over by aliens from the planet Xenon. Now, I’m not going to tell you how I know that. You’ll just have to trust me.

@@rex8255 Excellent! Many thanks, Rex.

I heard this when I was very young like 15 years ago. I'm wondering why this strategy has not been adopted?

LMAO I MEAN LITTERLY HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH LOL, LMAO, RAAP ME OP, IK GA BROKO

@@basguerain5900 Literally*

Dutch people correcting each other on English spelling is 100% charmingly Dutch

@@jsgang Well I did spend 16 years of my life living in an English speaking country(Ireland) so....I think I have more of a right to do so than most Dutchies. Especially as I also went to school there as a teenager ;)

hahahahahah ja maar echt!!!

@@bobstranzenbach4700 History happens to be on his side, in this case. I don't like eggplant, but I don't blame Nazis for its existence.

No wonder. They're used sparingly at the UK for blind/dangerous junctions so if you see one there's a good reason for you to stop and not just give way. A good driver from the UK would expect to always come to a full stop at a stop sign

How does anyone pass driving exams if they never stop at stop signs?

@@TheSpearkan they stop when they need too. ie. people around, cops there, driving test. after that, they dont care...

@@StarFyreXXX Yep, where I live I prob roll at least 80% of stop signs and I've never gotten a ticket. Its expected

You stop at train tracks in Japan? Are there no gates so you just have to look or get smashed? Lmao

@@lukasg4807 There should be gates and flashing lights and a sound alarm. Not having these is madness.

@@leandrog2785 There are. When a train is 30s+ away, the bell dings (forever...) and the gates start coming down. The gates are down with ~15s left before the train gets there. You are in 0 danger of getting stuck on the tracks, so no worries. Plus it's a massive object in your peripheral vision for a long distance (since you stop before the tracks, it's in your field of vision for hundreds of meters usually, generally very straight track) I've seen a few w/o gates outside of Tokyo, and maybe that's where the original commenter lives, outside of big cities. Here in Tokyo we don't need to look left/right when stopping at the tracks for the above reasons. We stop anyway because Japanese are nothing if not rule-observant.

In Europe, you're supposed to watch out for the train, even if there is no signal. In Germany, I have seen multiple instances where the signal was inop and the train had to honk and proceed at pedestrian speed in hope of nobody crashing into it.

Same here.

I’m in love with your country lol

zoals een washandje, dat is dus ook echt een nederlands ding!

Pixu SSB Dankjewel! (Thanks)

Inderdaad

@Klantvinder.com Shit I remember learning about this law change as it was happening in primary school. x'D Something like "Prins op de fiets".

@@TeshnosFire geef het door, rechts gaat voor haha

@Klantvinder.com this law was never accepted, meaning that every form of traffic share the same set of basic regulations, including the Give Way to the Right.

@Plan B marketing. Advies & Management Apperantly a lot of people don't know the change because I needed to stop several times because a car didn't stop for me on a bicycle and came from the right. So stopping it is because getting under a car doesn't sound fun

​@@nicoledijkstra7168 I worked in the Netherlands recently, and got to ride a bike there. It was really refreshing to see how much car drivers are aware of bikes. maybe i'm too used to drive defensively, but i surely held up traffic once or twice when stopping at an intersection i wouldn't dare to cross in germany, but in .nl the cars stopped and waved for me to go on. great cycling infrastructure helps of course to separate traffic and keep almost everyone happy.

Yep. But it's recommended to keep it clear for everyone. Especially tourist drivers. At some bad visibility junctions I wish they put a sign under it saying "and look both ways"

@@tr33c21 as a tourist you should be more careful you don't know the place. And from abroad double because you don't know the customs.

@@redsheppard5618 Most European countries have the rule to give way to the person on the right, so most people know it anyways.

American's are too self centered to think that way. It's astounding but where I live we have right hand turn yield lanes so anyone turning right can just go, have their own merge lane that no one else can use and people still stop at them because they need to get into the far lane and cant be bothered to take an extra 2 minutes out of their day to just go with the intended flow of traffic.

Sometimes the sign "dangerous crossing" is placed. As if you couldn't see that yourself.

Bro same god damn story. Same city in Europe. Left with the ame opnion about my home.

Welp your not wrong were a 3rd world country pretending to be a world power

It's ironic, in history people originally left Europe (and to an extent, Asia) to what are now the USA and Canada for a better life. Now, if people from those countries want said better life, they're better off staying on their continents. XD

@@skepticanadian3041 yep

@Quill Maurer actually the US seems to be backsliding in its development

Waarom lees ik dat nu voor het eerst? Dat is toch mooi man? Heerlijk land leven we in.

Lopen nog steeds een aantal interessante projecten zo te zien.

Yes., one of the things I like about the Netherlands, is that we are always looking to improve things.

That's pretty cool.

Scary concept, mandatory innovations aren't always improvements.

Yep. Solid logic. Let's put stop signs everywhere. 😂

@@NotJustBikes Yes and lets be more extreme than the German occupation force regarding road rules. 😂

@@NotJustBikes 'befehl ist befehl' comes to mind for some reason

@Average Joesson crosswalks you can activate with flashing yellow lights work. Then just step in, if anyone hits you bicycle or car it's a easy lawsuit.

@@NotJustBikes You forgot "We cannot discuss doing things different because that would break the rules."

Same, when I was a kid, I didn't understand stop signs because I was like "traffic lights tell you when to stop and when to go again, but these signs just tell you to stop. Do you just stop forever??" I think part of it was because in the part of London I grew up in there are to my memory hardly any stop signs at all. It was all about traffic lights and zebra crossings.

Uhu, exactly!

Kom je wel achter als je naar Amerika of Canada gaat.

That's because we evolved to handle chaos, not a set of tightly defined rules covering simple situations. Our minds just aren't adapted to the sort of structure planners often think is best. Your mind rations attention because there's a limit to the amount of mental processing you can do, and it's always needed for something else. So a highly ordered situation will signal the brain to lower attention to that situation and either partially rest or consider another aspect of your struggle for survival. That's what worked when we were evolving and so that's how your brain works.

Also, texting/talking on the phone while driving is a serious problem in the U.S. This is partially enabled because it's too easy to drive distractedly without consequence. If our roads were designed slightly more chaotically, with more roundabouts and yield signs instead of stops, drivers would be forced to pay attention and drive deliberately.

@@InventorZahran Don't even get me started on people first in line at the traffic light who think red light time is phone time, and thus miss when the light turns green. Pay attention you stupid zoomers, Facebook will still be there when you reach your destination.

Very true, if I am tired driving its safer to speed. Which is a sign I need to hit the next hotel

I've been to cities in China and Mongolia where it is definite ironic coordination. Everyone must pay attention or get wrecked. There are few accidents and the volume of traffic, the seeming chaos is amazing.

Hoezo herinnert? Ik heb 2 jaar geleden nog een keer mee gedaan als examinator. .

phoee jaa, ik weet nog dat ik die goed gekeurd sticker niet op me fiets had zitten haha

Wheelies doen wanneer de examinator 't niet kan zien :P

I'm not dutch, but I did do a cycling proficiency exam in primary school, I passed. I am actually very grateful that I did this because now I live in the Netherlands and my fiets is my main method of transport. I am so happy that it is relatively safe to cycle here as I loved to cycle as a kid.

ik had m nooit gehaald omdat ik op een plein fietste, vervolgens kwam ik in groep 8 op een andere basisschool en zei ik dat ik m nooit gehaald had. zei de leraar: wil je ook een fietsdiploma dan? ik was echt geschokkeerd dat zo'n diploma dus eigenlijk niks betekent en niks voorstelt

Exactly. In all cases on the road there's the standard order of which instructions to follow. Instructions from people (police or traffic controllers) are always the highest authority, then electronic signals like traffic lights, then traffic signs, then the base rules. If a light is not working, follow the signs. If there are no signs, it's just a regular crossing now. Give way to the cars on the right, eye contact, negotiate, and you're on your way. (Note: some countries have the rule: "a non-functioning stop light becomes a stop sign")

@@dexcuracy ... or an yield- sign for the hours with low traffic and switched out traffic- lights.

It's the same as in the Netherlands, but without the stop signs. Instead, yield signs are used (for some sides of the intersection). So that begs the question: why do they use stop singns in Belgium at traffic lights?

@@Christian-ox7qx A yield sign and a stop sign are exactly the same but a stop sign asks you exactly what it says, to STOP. A yield sign asks you to slow down OR stop if necessary. Did you ever study the signs...? Please don't spread misinformation to others and do your reseach before you make a claim on something.

@@Christian-ox7qx Stop signs at traffic lights are installed for the case, if it is out of service. In this case users of the secondary- road have to wait ... the same principle like in Germany.

The problem is that people don't need solutions. They need solutions matching their bias.

Amen

@@AlexanderVlasov It's not that simple. What works in the Netherlands, can't work in the same way in the USA exactly because the distance between homes, stores and work and sometimes even neighbours is just too big and given that the quality of roads in the USA in general is poorer, less well maintained/renewed compared to the Netherlands exactly because of economic reasons. We live in a rather densely populated area and can do stuff other countries can't or can't afford to copy. The same goes for the other things the opening poster mentioned, for various reasons, they can't be copied like a piece of paper.

@@AwoudeX Well yeah, the houses are far apart and businesses are far apart because of suburban r1 zoning. Instead of some quick and easy fix of just getting rid of stop signs to be like the Dutch, we can start with rezoning. The problem isn’t “we’re Americans therefore can’t be Dutch” is flawed because there is *nothing* stopping us from rezoning, redoing, and planning, the problem is that the US just always looks for a quick fix. If it can’t be solved by guns, money, or corruption, then it can’t be solved. If most Americans actually put in some effort we could adopt these plans, but that’s not going to happen.

@@AwoudeX the usa road design and quality just screams lazyness to me

The ability to go long distances without ever stopping is incredible. It was something I never really appreciated until I started living here and experiencing it myself. I now try to "game" my routes to see if, with minor changes, I can avoid all traffic lights. It almost always works!

@@NotJustBikes it does become a sport having as little traffic lights as possible... Keeps the navigating fun, though

Maybe, but as a Canadian I can tell you Stop signs are excesivly used for the purpose to be used as a tool to slow down traffic and to give out driving infractions. The city will deliberatly put stops signs in very ineficient places knowing fullwell that people do not come to complete stops and the police at the end of the month hide and do full scale operations to hand out many $300+ tickets to both driver and cyclists.

Yep, I'm. Big believer in stop-bumps. Too many people roll right through

It isn't just about stop signs, but the overuse of stop signs and bad street design that lead to the problems we have in America. Clearly, they don't have the same problems in many stopsign-less, north European countries. That's why he doesn't advocate for simply removing the stop signs, but for redesigning streets before they're gone altogether.

Bro, i think the purpose of the video flew right over your head. Canada and USA, face it has the worst urban planning out there relative to being a "1st world country". And I think your suggestion of adding a speedbump is exactly proof why roads out there are bad.

@@Muchacho2DMax Huh? Did you watch the video? Part of it was how things like bumps are used to make sure drivers slow down, thus eliminating the need for stop signs.

Does said friend cycle today? In the UK the end of this story would be "and my friend has never cycled since. She now drives everywhere"

@@tomverseUK yes, i can't remember exactly, but she biked again and i reckon she started biking as soon as she could. I can see where you're coming from, but for young people here its just too much a part of normal life; going to school, going to friends, going to horseriding etc. So i think it doesn't even cross peoples minds that to stop using the bike is even a possibility, especially at a young age.

@@tomverseUK i think the trauma is more with crossing the street and being scared for cars then for being scared to bike. biking is like walking here, you wouldn't stop walking when you get hit by a car crossing the street as a pedestrian

@@bascep God, I need to move there. I wish my preference for the most efficient form of transport (the bike) didn't mark me out as a hobbyist here in Wales...

We have a relatively new junction in my city (Purmerend) that, since it's conception has seen a couple of accidents, with a very serious (almost fatal) one and local government failed to follow through. The weird thing is: on every level the junction in particular ignores some of the core principals of junction design: A 30 kilometer road that has a cycle path crossing the road is basically always designed so that car users or any other motorised traffic need to yield to the cyclists. This junction crosses a 30 kilometer road and car users have the right of way. Junction design will usually try to steer clear of dangerous situations developing from the simple fact that a deviation in design might cause car users to be confused and stop whereas people behind them might not expect that and hit them. Also, junction design will usually also take the level-surface (the "one big speed bump" explanation) design into account: in this case car users do not have to slow down because they hit a speed bump, but cyclists also don't experience one. I think there is also a rule that should a cyclist be coming from some kind of downwards sloping cycle path towards a junction it's more convenient (and less dangerous) to give cyclists the right of way, but this rule or recommendation has also been ignored, you come racing down from a bridge and then have to come to a full stop because it's a busy junction where, next to the lack of clarity in how it's designed it's also common for people to ignore the speed limit of 30 kilometers an hour and drive 50.

Very true

I agree, but you can only do that if there is a viable alternative

@@_CriminalArt_ That's the biggest problem, we designed cities so it's impossible to do anything without a car, then surprise, we have to significant lower the requirements to drive a car or people are stranded :(

@@Nota-Skaven In cities, it's much easier to do things without a car. Many people don't even own them, because there's tons of public transportation and things you can walk to. My wife didn't own a car when she lived in new york city.

@@Andrew-it7fb New York City, you mean the city famous for being a rare occasion of actually having good transit in North America? The east coast in general suffers far less from car dependency, with NYC being the most famous specifically because it sadly is not the norm (and of course the cities population size, which is likely linked)

Most sensible: no just get rid of stop signs lol

Yup, that's why we also pay pretty high taxes. Whenever I'm in another country I can thankfully really see were all the taxmoney goes towards and it's well worth it! It's a little bit harder to see when you don't get to travel. Thankfully there are also videos like these for those that don't.

@@warffxfreak taxes are high, but overall we are way cheaper. And yes we get a lot back for it what you see as soon as you go to an other country.

@@emiel1976ep wouldn't agree with the thing that we are way cheaper... Taxes going as high as 53% and 21% on most of the products. Also we have mandatory insurances.

@@l.l.6407 No you look ad taxes only, but take the USA. They pay less taxes but medical costs are way higher. As they get sick, they pay way more than we do. Also do they pay things like taxes but are called different. As the end, they pay more. Other countries in the EU pay lower taxes, but also get a lot less back for it. Only Greece is different. There you don't pay taxes and expect to get it for free. 😂😂

@@emiel1976ep they might pay more yeah, but therefore their income is averaged higher. So it compensates, but I fully have to agree that medical costs are higher.

I thought exactly the same thing when I first found the photo! 😁

The uniform is Dutch police, so he's not a Nazi-Nazi as in German occupiers. *Probably* not, I should say, as the role of the Dutch police forces in WW2, especially in Amsterdam, has been rather... *questionable* at the very least.

At first I thought it looked a bit like mr H himself. But on closer examination I figured it out ;-) He was also never actually in the Netherlands in that period.

Well tell the kids to stop illegally driving cars then!!!

@@BlownMacTruck :D

Dont forget our driving exam (theory And practical part) And much longer And advanced compared to america. And we have to be 18 (or in Some cases 17 with an experienced driver next to you) which gives you more experience in The road (by bike)

In the US, the de-facto rule is that traffic lights should be treated as all-way stops if they blackout. But every blackout I've seen, no one follows that rule. Usually it ends up becoming a stop for the side streets and a free-for-all for the higher ranking street.

north american traffic infra is weird to me as an aussie; why dont you peeps just use roundabouts?

@@hekkamomo I totally agree. Roundabouts are much more efficient.

There is no POINT in stopping at a stop SIGN if you can see its CLEAR from a distance you Americans are such drama queens when it comes to any sort of sign be it speed limit signs of stop signs I shall refer to You as a KAREN

@@Jack-qv2lj Why are you being so rude to someone you clearly agree with? Both of your comments are complaining about the overuse of stop signs.

Nah, speed humps waste so much fuel- going down from 25 to 10-15 and back to 25 is so stupid. They also wear cars down a lot. What is needed is traffic calming- other then the stupid and pointless speed humps in my opinion.

There are two speed humps in my neighborhood that do their job way better than signs. You can cross them at 25mph without an issue which is far better than literally every other speed bump in the US that requires driving -2mph to avoid being slapped senseless like driving on a rock crawling trail. If we did something like that, we'd need to learn how to properly and consistently make good speed bumps.

@@Jack-qv2lj That's a $176 fine for doing a rolling stop, in my state, or worse for blowing through a stop sign if there's a cop or traffic camera involved. We don't like them either but law makers persist in finding ways to take our money on senseless laws that don't even protect people... so who exactly is a karen when all of us are in agreement?

so... basically his or her head is continuously spinning

Except didn't grow up in the Netherlands and did the same thing, proper city driving where everything isn't suburbia (as in you have lots of pedestrians running around the place that often don't follow the rules). I've probably been in more car accidents and witnessed more car accidents than most in first world countries, I make it a point to have car insurance change the question from "How many accidents have you been in?" to "How many while I was driving?", so four, of which none yet have been my fault. (This all in South Africa, never been in an accident in Europe/US; one case of car is stopped in traffic, taxi took out my left side, one case of taxi taking out my mirror, another with trolley man going on a 4 lane highway at night on a mountain side (Google Groote Schuur and check the highway intersection to the south), and then another of a truck jack knifing on a highway, that last one was probably one of the scariest moments of my life as there's nothing you can do as you know you won't be able to break in time but you're hoping you're going to slow down enough and that the car's crumple zone will be good enough, think I hit at 40kmph, down from 120, I was fine, person left to me got rushed to hospital, car write off).

@Tonto that because in America any person can train any other person to drive. which can transfer bad habits to the new driver and go take their road and it is very cheap. in england and I believe and in Europe only licensed professional can train you and it cost a few thousand dollars to get your license. So ppl take it more seriously.

they dont give a shit about stop signs BECAUSE they're used EVERYWHERE lol. it just becomes something you tune out

Fun fact (although it may be different in your state), stop signs in parking lots are not actually legal traffic control devices so you can't be ticketed for them, and don't technically _have to_ obey them. The exception however, is for stop signs at the egress before you turn onto the road, that one is controlling road traffic, therefore legal.

I honestly think we need an entire upheaval of our driving education, culture and infrastructure before we're even close to being ready to get rid of stop signs in North America.

There is no intrinsic difference between Americans and Europeans. I don’t understand how you could leave a video with the impression that it was anything other than road design. I mean he specifically said drivers that aren’t paying attention or listening to rules will be slowed down by the design of the road.

Good luck. They'll just complain about infringement of their free-dumb.

Americans use "right of way" as a weapon.

Wait you don't yield to the person on your right when there's no signs at an intersection? How do you handle it then, seems like such a basic thing to me I didn't even think there could be some place that didn't use that :D

I learned right of way but the problem is....no matter if others have the right of way or not, they will take it. Courtesy has gone out the window in America. We treat each other like dirt and especially when we're in our cars.

@@matousfiala5925 Whoever gets there first is the actual rule in America. 'Yield to the person on the left' is the backup I think? I could be wrong, it rarely comes up. Usually both people stop and then sort of play chicken with who can wait longest.

I know in the US there are a few intersections with both Stop Signs and Traffic Lights; but I never knew what they where for. In some cities, they just switch the Traffic Lights to the 'Flashing' mode at night (or whenever the traffic density is low enough to do so) so the intersection functions as a 2 way stop (assuming it's a 4 way intersection); giving the higher priority roads flashing yellow for yielding, and the others flashing red for stopping.

*curbs*

@@carultch If you prefer.

lmao thats not true at all

@@UniversalKutub oh well

@@UniversalKutub it kinda is, im a new driver, and i started treating stop signs as yield signs because rolling through in slow 2nd is much nicer than stopping and starting from 1st.

I think right now I'm preaching to the choir: my average video likes to dislikes are over 98%. If this channel gets more popular then we'll start seeing detractors.

I don't think anyone in the world thinks 4-way stops are a good idea.

@@ThierryTheuns Hahaha, you would be surprised

I'm a total Order Muppet who likes rules, but even I can see that a four way stop is time wasting mess. If only I could get the city to turn the intersection at the end of my street into a roundabout. The neighbors at the corner would lose their minds, though.

@@ThierryTheuns Sometimes they are useful. But more often than not, they're rubbish.

Isnt that normal ? Could you senta picture hpw it look in your earea?

@@pwghost I live there.

Yes, I came to the comments to see what people made of that. Why is there yield signs in the road and a stop sign on the post? They contradict each other. And about the stop signs under a traffic light, here in sweden we have those signs in case the traffic light is broken, then you revert to the signs. Some have stop signs while others have yield signs and if one of the roads is a major road it usually has a "main route" sign. (I have no idea what those are called in english)

Truth hey. As a south african I agree, we always treat stops as yields, which work really well for us, or so we think. The idea of stopping at a stop if you are the only one there or going to be the first to arrive is foreign to me. So too is the european habit of obeying pedestrian traffic lights and only using crosswalks. If there is no car, why should I wait for the magical green light to say it is safe if i know that there are no cars? Cars here love skipping pedestrian traffic lights (and our mini bus taxi's do not acknowledge any form of road signage) , which keeps life interesting. Our urban planning makes no sense though, but we are sadly car-bound due to safety as we have extremely high crime rates.

@@heinoobermeyer7566 "Our urban planning makes no sense though" For Cape Town, you have a giant mountain and a failure of a railway system and people constantly destroying stuff, resulting in a car requirement (though Atlantic seaboard has a pretty good bus system). Sprawl exists for everything built post 2000 or so (looking at Durbanville etc.) For Johannesburg you have it similar to the US with the urban sprawl, you basically need a car. It's just extremely strange considering a majority in South Africa cannot afford a road, townships actually have better routes within them than suburbia does (though I'd never want to be in one due to crime, space, etc.).

@@Masterrunescapeer The mountain is very good for navigating though, I always know where I am lol. I really just wish we had safe, quality, public transport as it would help deal with the sprawl and gridlock. But the safety concerns would result in almost all such efforts being meaningless.

True, there is one other thing the UK does pretty well: painting a circle in the middle of an intersection and tell people it is a roundabout. Stupidity Triumphant.

A couple of years back, my locality came and put in signs to warn you that there were stop signs 10m in front of the stop signs.

Who would of thought to STOP and look both ways before you cross the street ??

And then you get the folks who think "can treat stop sign as yield" means "automatic right of way I'll just blow past the line of six cars and weave around the guy already turning here", but they were doing it before the law changed as well. There's some point of critical density. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and, whether it was official or not, nobody cared if cyclists or cars treated stop signs as yield and stoplights as signs as long as it wasn't rush hour. At the other side of the critical point there's an intersection near where I live (SE 26th and Steele for folks who know Portland) where some weirdness about major streets becoming less major and off-highway traffic spreading into the area means you can at times get a whole bunch of folks coming from any direction trying to go any direction and a stop sign feels necessary, even at lighter-traffic parts of the day you have no idea what speed mindset people are hitting the intersection with and a 4-way stop really helps. Then in between there's all the side roads and smaller neighborhoods where the signs basically just mark which road has the right of way if someone happens to be coming by at the same time, and yield there makes sense.

To generalise all cyclists on account of one incident you had is at the very least shortsighted.

you also see the guy in orange with a theodolite at that intersection, probably taking the measurements to have it re designed and get rid of the stop sign.