Idaho stop
Similar laws also encourage riders to take safer low-traffic streets instead of faster high-traffic roads.
Carl Bianchi, then the Administrative Director of the courts in Idaho, saw an opportunity to attach a modernization of the bicycle law onto the larger revision of the traffic code.
Addressing the concerns of the state's magistrates, who were concerned that "technical violations" of traffic control device laws by bicyclists were cluttering the court, the draft also contained a provision that allowed bicyclists to treat a stop sign as a yield sign—the so-called "rolling stop law".
[7] In 2001, UC Berkeley physics professor Joel Fajans and magazine editor Melanie Curry published an essay entitled "Why Bicyclists Hate Stop Signs" on why rolling stops were better for bicyclists, generating greater interest in the Idaho law.
[10] The Oregon effort in turn inspired an investigation of the law by the San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission in 2008.
[11] That investigation failed to spawn legislation, but did garner national attention, leading to similar efforts nationwide.
[13] In August of the same year, the term—now in quotes—first showed up in print in a Christian Science Monitor article by Ben Arnoldy who referred to the "so-called 'Idaho stop' rule".
A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration fact sheet published in March 2023 states that stop-as-yield and red-as-stop laws "showed added safety benefits for bicyclists in States where they were evaluated, and may positively affect the environment, traffic, and transportation".
[15] Acting Administrator Ann Carlson stated at a conference in October 2022 that "it increases [bicyclist] visibility to drivers and reduces their exposure.
[29] Such signs only affect crossings were the cyclist is able to hug the pavement, i.e. going straight or turning right at T-junctions.
[40] On August 6, 2019, Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed stop-as-yield into law with an effective date of January 1, 2020.
[45] In December 2022, Washington, DC adopted the Safer Streets Amendment Act which allows bicyclists to yield at stop signs.
The act also allows bicyclists to turn right at a red light after stopping, which was banned for drivers at the same time.
[62] Jack Gillette, former president of the Boise Bicycle Commuters Association, argued that bicyclists should not have greater freedoms than drivers.
Such laws often require that the bicyclist stop, confirm that there is no oncoming traffic, and proceed after waiting a certain amount of time or cycles of the light.
[65] Lane splitting, which allows people on bicycles and motorcycles to "filter" through stopped or slow-moving traffic, is legal in a handful of US states and in numerous other countries.
