CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University has new research aimed at keeping the streets safer, especially for cyclists.
In 2019, Oregon became one of seven states that has a bicycle rolling-stop law. That means cyclists can treat stop signs as yield signs and are not required to come to a full stop.
Now OSU put the law to the test, seeing what happens through a simulator when a cyclist and a vehicle meet at a 4-way stop.
The simulation showed once participants were educated on the bicycle rolling-stop law, drivers approached intersections more slowly or at a similar speed, while cyclists preferred to yield instead of coming to a full stop, knowing they could.
“It required fully connecting two independent simulators, running subjects in pairs simultaneously and having each subject interacting with an avatar of the other in a shared virtual world,” said David Hurwitz, a transportation engineering professor and the study’s leader. “We evaluated safety-relevant behaviors associated with laws stemming from the ‘Idaho stop,’ which was put on the books in 1982 but largely ignored around the country until not long ago.”
Yielding enables bikes to maintain speed to get through intersections quickly, which the study suggests could reduce congestion and crash risks.
The study suggests if everyone became more aware of the law, bike and vehicle crashes could diminish.
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