<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>datadata</author><text>In west coast cities, stop signs seem to serve the purpose of letting pedestrians exert their legal right of way where it would otherwise be taken by cars. Without stop signs, cars are not really likely to stop and pedestrians will wait until the road is simply clear rather than playing a one sided mortal game of chicken. The result is that cars can pretend that the pedestrian doesn&amp;#x27;t actually want to cross. With a stop sign, pedestrians can reason that a car has to stop for the stop sign, and so they will also be able to walk.&lt;p&gt;That said I think stop signs is a terrible solution to this issue.</text><parent_chain><item><author>AuthorizedCust</author><text>The solution that’s never on the table is getting rid of most stop signs.&lt;p&gt;The main point of a stop sign is to control intersections that objectively need the stop to permit safe traffic flow.&lt;p&gt;We are instead seeing unwarranted stop signs proliferate like rabbits, justified by things they can’t do, like slow or calm traffic.&lt;p&gt;On top of that, we’re ignoring the problems _caused by_ unwarranted stop signs, including crashes that wouldn’t otherwise happen, increased noise, increased pollution (especially small particles in the stop sign’s vicinity), higher speeds that are induced after the stop sign (drivers make up for time lost at the stop), and the broader consequences of reducing credibility of traffic regulations overall (people aren’t stupid, and when they are conditioned to that stop signs are mostly pointless, the conditioning bleeds over to the whole regime of traffic regulations).&lt;p&gt;Stop engineering malpractice, ditch most stop signs, and problem solved!</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>The Colorado Safety Stop is the law of the land</title><url>https://www.bicyclecolorado.org/bike-news/colorado-safety-stop-becomes-law/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>ajmurmann</author><text>When I first visited the US the frequent stop signs were one of the strangest things to me. They are so rare in Europe where there are yield and right of way signs instead. Ever since I&amp;#x27;ve been wondering if the fossil fuel lobby is causing this to drive up fuel consumption.</text><parent_chain><item><author>AuthorizedCust</author><text>The solution that’s never on the table is getting rid of most stop signs.&lt;p&gt;The main point of a stop sign is to control intersections that objectively need the stop to permit safe traffic flow.&lt;p&gt;We are instead seeing unwarranted stop signs proliferate like rabbits, justified by things they can’t do, like slow or calm traffic.&lt;p&gt;On top of that, we’re ignoring the problems _caused by_ unwarranted stop signs, including crashes that wouldn’t otherwise happen, increased noise, increased pollution (especially small particles in the stop sign’s vicinity), higher speeds that are induced after the stop sign (drivers make up for time lost at the stop), and the broader consequences of reducing credibility of traffic regulations overall (people aren’t stupid, and when they are conditioned to that stop signs are mostly pointless, the conditioning bleeds over to the whole regime of traffic regulations).&lt;p&gt;Stop engineering malpractice, ditch most stop signs, and problem solved!</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>The Colorado Safety Stop is the law of the land</title><url>https://www.bicyclecolorado.org/bike-news/colorado-safety-stop-becomes-law/</url></story>