Stop signs as yields

Ask any motorist what irritates them most about cyclists, and you’re likely to get an earful about cyclists who behave as if stop signs and red lights don’t apply to them.

It’s a sore point in relations between motorists and cyclists, and is the single most cited contributor to the negative stereotype that cyclists are arrogant scofflaws.

Neither side is likely to change its stance; those who believe that cyclists should not hold themselves above the law continue to maintain that cyclists are scofflaws (or, alternatively, that scofflaw cyclists tarnish the reputations of all cyclists), while those who ignore the traffic signals continue to maintain that the law should not apply to cyclists, and reject any responsibility for the negative stereotypes of cyclists.

This article discusses the long time Idaho law, which, of course, makes great sense (thank you, Idaho folks), which allows bicyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs and stop lights as stop signs. Of course, car drivers may not understand that different rules apply to bicyclists in Idaho than apply to them, so they still think of them as scofflaws.

This article raises a bigger point which is about widely held perceptions of various "classes" of people based on the behavior that other classes disapprove of.