Stop Signs Part 7

Meanwhile, cyclists in Idaho seem comfortable enough with their Code.
“It’s been the same ever since I moved here,” said Dave Seasons, manager of Ken’s Bicycles in Boise. “Since at least ’93. And I’ve never had an instance with traffic.”
Idaho Code 49-746, which permitted cyclists to run stop signs, passed in 1982. The red light law went into effect in 2005.
“In retrospect the stop sign law is not a bad law,” Mark McNeese, State Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator of the Idaho Transportation Department said. “It certainly makes riding a bike more enjoyable. Overcoming inertia takes a lot of energy from a cyclist.”
The Idaho Code isn’t perfect. Both Seasons and McNeese said that they get the impression that most drivers have no idea that cyclists are allowed to run stop signs and red lights. This might create resentment among drivers and a sense that cyclists are reckless, but McNeese doesn't think it makes cycling any more dangerous.
"I can assure you that cyclists understand very well the repercussions of motor-vehicle/bicycle collisions and are not 'blatantly' inviting disaster."
George Knight, a cycling advocate and philosophy professor at Boise State University (agrees that cyclists can make their own decisions.)
"In a way it seems kind of goofy to not give [cyclists] exceptions to laws not created for [them]. At signalized intersections, I'd rather just get the heck out of there. The whole thing is just putting MY safety in MY hands."
But Knight acknowledges that cyclists take liberties with Idaho's Code.
"You do see people just blasting through. Then someone 200 yards away sees that and draws whatever conclusions they draw. And a lot of time they think that cyclists don't stop at stop signs at all."
Then drivers get mad. Or they get skittish and sit at stop signs waiting for cyclists to blast through and nobody goes anywhere. Or cyclists start to get used to cars letting them go ahead and become emboldened to the point of not stopping at intersections with or without traffic until one day someone runs a stop sign and gets run over.
"If people always acted according to the letter of the law," Knight said, "everything would go fine..."