The author is founder of Vive la Ruelle and content director of the Group of Fifty. He also collaborates in washington post.
Every time I come across a “Stop” sign while riding my bikes with my kids, I find myself faced with a difficult dilemma: should I tell them to do what is legal or to do what makes sense?
If I tell them to slow down to walking speed, look around carefully, and keep going if no one is coming, I will teach them how to cross the lane in the safest way possible, as several studies have shown. published around the world. But in doing so, I will also teach them to break the law. Because in Quebec, on a bike, everyone must comply at all times with road signs and traffic lights.
If I tell them to pull over completely, even if no cars are coming, I am teaching them to be good law-abiding citizens. But this learning will have a price: I will also make them understand that they are surrounded by outlaws. Because, let’s face it, no one around will do the same.
This dilemma is imposed on us by the Quebec Highway Safety Code. So even though Montreal is determined to turn itself into a bike paradise, the Highway Code falls under provincial jurisdiction, and Quebec law insists on treating bikes as if they were pathetically underpowered mini-cars. By insisting that cyclists follow the same rules as cars, the Code ends up creating chaos and fueling a lot of friction between cyclists and motorists.
General confusion
The reality, perfectly obvious to anyone biking in Montreal, is that virtually all cyclists ignore stop signs at clear intersections on residential streets. The more cautious of them do the most logical thing by acting as if it were a “Give Way” sign: they slow down, look carefully around and continue without stopping.
The detail, and it is not insignificant, is that caution is not a characteristic unanimously shared by the members of my cycling clan. Many of my co-religionists feel that stopping is a bit ridiculous and therefore okay to cross without even slowing down. Others seem to go even further, concluding that all law is cycling optional. Motorists love to hate this type of cyclist and sometimes end up feeling that all cyclists are, like them, public threats.
In my opinion, the general confusion around stop signs for bicycles is the source of the problem, or at least a large part of it. The proverbial “Stop” norm has no social legitimacy among cyclists: almost the entire community has tacitly chosen to ignore it.
Any law that remains in force despite its lack of social legitimacy breeds chaos. Today, Montreal cyclists act as if certain articles of the Highway Code apply to them and others do not, but it is obvious that there is no real consensus regarding the line demarcation between the two. Each cyclist must therefore exercise discernment to establish his personal law, which gives rise to a mishmash of behaviors, from the safest to the most reckless. Which leads us… down the path of chaos, the same chaos that too often reigns in the cycling streets of Montreal.
Code common sense
Fortunately, a simple solution is at hand. Already, in 2018, city councilor Marianne Giguère, responsible for active mobility for the Plante administration, asked Quebec to review the Highway Code to legalize so-called common sense bike stops, as more in addition to US states following the example of Idaho.
We are reluctant to borrow solutions from our American cousins, especially these days, but in this case we should make an exception. In 1982, the State of Idaho introduced a new standard that allows cyclists to treat a stop sign as a “Give Way” sign. In fact, the law allows all cyclists to do what responsible cyclists have always done: slow down to walking pace when they see a stop sign, check for someone coming, and keep going without warning. stop if the intersection is clear.
The “Idaho stop” has been the subject of all sorts of studies in the forty years since its introduction, and there is ample evidence that it is not only safe, but much safer. One study found a 14.5% decrease in crashes at intersections after its introduction.
Eight other US states have adopted similar rules since. Among them, Delaware saw a 23% decrease in accidents involving cyclists at intersections controlled by stop signs. Some U.S. states have gone even further by allowing cyclists to also consider red lights as if they were “Give Way” signs: stop, look and, if the intersection is clear, continue without waiting for the green light. Something reasonable cyclists already do, anyway.
To ensure peace between cyclists and motorists, Montreal needs a highway code whose legitimacy is recognized by all users. A code that would put an end to the absurd situation in which we currently find ourselves, where cyclists do not have what it takes to impose a consensus that would make our behavior easier to predict, and therefore safer, both for motorists than for pedestrians and other cyclists.
Codifying common sense, that’s common sense. And restoring peaceful coexistence between cars and bicycles is also common sense. However, common sense, on a bike, Montreal really needs it.