I know you're not supposed to laugh at your own jokes, but I laughed so hard at this several times as I was editing it. When is our interview scheduled to go live on your channel?
In Australia everyone stops at Stop signs. They are only used on blind intersections. You shouldn't overuse warning signage. Using it where it doesn't need to be, means that it will be ignored when it is needed.
Yeah, coming from NZ where they're also rare and now living in Canada, I'm finding this out first hand. They're in so many places where Aus/NZ would use a Give Way sign that they just kind of blur together in Canada. It's also not helpful that the Canadians use 4 way stop signs where the rule is that whoever got to the intersection first has right of way. Madness.
Same here in Sweden. Stop signs are rare enough that almost everyone respects them. Yield signs are also respected and plentyful, which is good because the standard rule of "give way to the right" in unmarked intersections does not seem to have stuck very well from the driver's education in most people.
I came here to say the same thing. Plus the Belgian stop on traffic lights is technically correct but they should take a lesson from the Australian version where it has 3 black spots overlaid on the stop sign to indicate if the traffic lights aren't working then you treat it like a stop sign.
I would like to live in belgium since police dont steal your electric skateboard there unfortunately in the netherlands they do because of shitty laws electric one wheel is legal here because they could not imagine it being motorised when making the rules so according to the rules it cant be a vehicle the one wheel users still get stoped by police and theg steal them too although they do give it back after 3 months or longer which is not the case for electric skateboards they destroy it... very nice country indeed....
I feel like the US and Canada use stop signs so much that people just lose their respect for them, and when stops signs are actually needed in dangerous intersections, people will still just yield. In Norway, we have very few stop signs, which means that when there is a stop sign, people respect it and stop
They're waaaay overused, and for this reason, most people (myself included) don't have a great deal of respect for them. I actually do a better stop for level crossings with lights and gates (habit - I'm a bus driver) than many stop signs. Easily 80% could be replaced with yield signs. Uncontrolled intersections wouldn't work in many places because Americans drivers aren't smart enough to handle that
This isn’t always the case - in the UK, stop signs are quite rare here too, and stop signs are usually only put in when they’re actually needed. However, despite (or possibly in part due to) their rarity, a large minority of drivers don’t actually properly stop anyway. If you have an old intersection in the middle of the New Forest that causes cyclists to be in a driver’s blind spot on approach, and drivers don’t stop at the stop sign, you can begin to see the issue…
Yeah, in most US intersections the lower-priority road gets a stop sign BY DEFAULT. Thus, it is more reliably a priority indicator than a genuine need to stop. Also, Oregon recently they passed a law allowing bicycles to yield at stop signs if the intersection is clear, but keep in mind this is as an exception to the default traffic rules.
Its true, A Stop Sign is used in basically every single intersection that isn't signaled.... all of them.... You cant go down a middle of nowhere road that meets another middle of nowhere road, with nothing but empty fields for miles, without hitting a damn stop sign. You would see the oncoming car long before the stop sign itself.... but better put one in anyways. because North America
Stop signs being the equivalent of "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" had me laughing out loud. It's so accurate that it's just depressing. As a Dutchie now living and cycling in Canada, I hate stop signs with a passion. And I miss the Dutch cycling infrastructure so much.
I only know 2 intersections with stop signs in my area. Both demand you to stop because right up to the intersection there is a wall blocking the view for 1 side. The only time stop signs should be used! When stopping to be able to see, is actually required.
@@tardvandecluntproductions1278 I'm glad my home country of Russia has similar standards. I like being able to proceed thru a junction if it's obviously clear without needing to stop and waste more petrol to get back up to speed. There's a few stop signs in my area. They're either at junctions with bad visibility, or at level crossings with no gates, barriers or even lights. Though there's a few level crossings where even a stop sign is unnecessary, because there's a closed railway gate right next to the road, and it's easy to tell whether a train is coming through or not just by it's position.
And because we have such a car first society in Canada, drivers get pissy when you roll through a stop sign on a bike...when in reality you're basically going at the same speed as most drivers rolling through them too! But...drivers like to target cyclists because they find cyclists annoying and an impedance to traffic!
@@tardvandecluntproductions1278 This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about when I said: A stop sign is saying "We designed this intersection so badly it can only be made safe by coming to a complete stop.". Don't put a stop sign where the driver can see, make sure he can see. I bet the truck drivers can't see very well even if they did stop right?
@@newperve I understand that too frequent and inappropiate use of stop signs are shit but usage of stop signs in blind intersections is the right call. Sometimes you have to use a stop sign because the thing thats creating the blind spot could be an entire building or a hill and thats not something you can really workaround unless you want to evict people and pay thousands in destruction efforts.
As an American living in the Netherlands, one thing I appreciate is that Stop Signs are so rare, that when you come across one, you take it more seriously. (even if plenty of people just ignore it altogether)
@@jaimefish173 Another thing I like about the Netherlands: When I first came here, I noticed that none of the canals have railings to stop people from falling in them. I commented that the city could get sued for that. The answer I got: "No they would not. The city would just call you an idiot for falling in the first place." They have an attitude of just don't be an idiot, while in the US the attitude is everyone is an idiot.
Azivegu that is pretty accurate yes! The world is so much easier and relaxed if instead you getting sued for others being idiots, the idiots get called out for being idiots and get a “what have you learned” speech.
@@Azivegu you'll notice in amsterdam the sidewalk is never next to the canal, it's always on the side with the houses. essentially, you're not meant to walk next to the water. the canals are open because historically they were used for docking. the center used to be filled with boats everywhere. even though it's much less now it's still used as such. sometimes you hear about cars rolling into the canals because they weren't in park. the city never gets sued, the owner ends up getting billed by the fire department for being a dumbass lmao
I am an Urban Planning student from England who has always been interested in Dutch urban planning. I think the UA-cam algorithm just recommended me the perfect channel.
I'm sure you already know about the channel called 'City Beautiful' and 'Armchair Urbanist', but if you don't, they're fantastic resources as well. In return, if you know of any other channels, please tell me :D
4:58 One thing I noticed here. The stop line is forward enough where if you actually stop at the line, you can see left and right clearly, AND you're not blocking the bikes behind you. Too often North American roads put the stop line behind an intersecting crosswalk/bike path, which is fine. The issue is, if you actually stop there, some intersections don't give you enough visibility to actually see left and right, so you're forced to proceed into the sidewalk/bike crossing, blocking anyone trying to cross. This is especially problematic in urban areas, but even driving in suburban areas, I can't even trust the stop line!
Yes! Thank you. Recently a building by me put up a dumpster at a T intersection so you couldn't see incoming traffic that doesn't have to stop. I have a roll an entire car length beyond the stop line before I can even see if it's safe to proceed
So here's a weird one: This town in Germany got rid of ALL of the signs, crosswalks, speed limits, everything. Turns out the pedestrians were safer, the auto drivers actually drove slower and were more careful. They attribute part of the improvement to the fact that there isn't a tone of regulatory crap the driver has to keep track of.
@@pprav987 A comment in which you made numerous claims. With no information to back up those claims. By the way, I know of a town in Switzerland that was taken over by aliens from the planet Xenon. Now, I’m not going to tell you how I know that. You’ll just have to trust me.
@@jsgang Well I did spend 16 years of my life living in an English speaking country(Ireland) so....I think I have more of a right to do so than most Dutchies. Especially as I also went to school there as a teenager ;)
@Klantvinder.com this law was never accepted, meaning that every form of traffic share the same set of basic regulations, including the Give Way to the Right.
@Plan B marketing. Advies & Management Apperantly a lot of people don't know the change because I needed to stop several times because a car didn't stop for me on a bicycle and came from the right. So stopping it is because getting under a car doesn't sound fun
@@nicoledijkstra7168 I worked in the Netherlands recently, and got to ride a bike there. It was really refreshing to see how much car drivers are aware of bikes. maybe i'm too used to drive defensively, but i surely held up traffic once or twice when stopping at an intersection i wouldn't dare to cross in germany, but in .nl the cars stopped and waved for me to go on. great cycling infrastructure helps of course to separate traffic and keep almost everyone happy.
This is excellent. I’m a Dutch guy living in Japan, and it always amazes me how people indeed follow the rules but it does not result in them paying attention. For instance, when crossing a railroad track, you have to come to a complete stop. Everyone does it, but no-one actually checks if there are any trains coming.
@@leandrog2785 There are. When a train is 30s+ away, the bell dings (forever...) and the gates start coming down. The gates are down with ~15s left before the train gets there. You are in 0 danger of getting stuck on the tracks, so no worries. Plus it's a massive object in your peripheral vision for a long distance (since you stop before the tracks, it's in your field of vision for hundreds of meters usually, generally very straight track) I've seen a few w/o gates outside of Tokyo, and maybe that's where the original commenter lives, outside of big cities. Here in Tokyo we don't need to look left/right when stopping at the tracks for the above reasons. We stop anyway because Japanese are nothing if not rule-observant.
Thats why the self-driving car most likely will never find a foothold in Europe (And then West Europe and Scandinavia specifically), because the roads and the city design aren't set up for it (Roads and streets aren't wide enough basically). You can say the same about Japan.
@@nickdentoom1173 Why would you need wide streets? Just like smaller cars are more normal in Europe, so will smaller self driving cars be. Not to mention at by the point we have self driving cars then they will all be electrict meaning a smaller car is more prefered for effeciency. And if infrastructure and technology move the right way we can have dirt cheap small self driving ubers for the city, high speed rails between cities for longer travel and only people living in the countryside will have the need for bigger EV-cars.
No wonder. They're used sparingly at the UK for blind/dangerous junctions so if you see one there's a good reason for you to stop and not just give way. A good driver from the UK would expect to always come to a full stop at a stop sign
Even at blind intersections a stop sign is hardly used in the Netherlands, if you can't see to the right you automatically stop out of practice. After all you can't give way to someone if you can't see them.
Yep. But it's recommended to keep it clear for everyone. Especially tourist drivers. At some bad visibility junctions I wish they put a sign under it saying "and look both ways"
American's are too self centered to think that way. It's astounding but where I live we have right hand turn yield lanes so anyone turning right can just go, have their own merge lane that no one else can use and people still stop at them because they need to get into the far lane and cant be bothered to take an extra 2 minutes out of their day to just go with the intended flow of traffic.
After a full day of binging your videos my husband and I are like 70% seriously talking about just up and moving with our kids to the Netherlands. One can dream.
USA mindset: "But without stop signs for people to run and get ticketed for, how are you going to fund your police department that enforces our useless traffic laws?" After traveling to Amsterdam last summer, I felt like the US was a primitive country. Would say "developing," but that would imply actively making progress towards something better, which we are not.
It's ironic, in history people originally left Europe (and to an extent, Asia) to what are now the USA and Canada for a better life. Now, if people from those countries want said better life, they're better off staying on their continents. XD
I used to work voor Rijkswaterstaat ( the ministery responsible for the roads) and when designing a new road we were mandatory by law to put some innovation in the new design. Don't now if this is still the case.
Ironically coordinated chaos is much safer than clear set out structure. If you are driving in NL you also have to pay attention to some degree while driving in the USA for example you can kinda phase out because roads are to overstructured meaning you lose concentration which results in accidents
That's because we evolved to handle chaos, not a set of tightly defined rules covering simple situations. Our minds just aren't adapted to the sort of structure planners often think is best. Your mind rations attention because there's a limit to the amount of mental processing you can do, and it's always needed for something else. So a highly ordered situation will signal the brain to lower attention to that situation and either partially rest or consider another aspect of your struggle for survival. That's what worked when we were evolving and so that's how your brain works.
Also, texting/talking on the phone while driving is a serious problem in the U.S. This is partially enabled because it's too easy to drive distractedly without consequence. If our roads were designed slightly more chaotically, with more roundabouts and yield signs instead of stops, drivers would be forced to pay attention and drive deliberately.
@@InventorZahran Don't even get me started on people first in line at the traffic light who think red light time is phone time, and thus miss when the light turns green. Pay attention you stupid zoomers, Facebook will still be there when you reach your destination.
I've been to cities in China and Mongolia where it is definite ironic coordination. Everyone must pay attention or get wrecked. There are few accidents and the volume of traffic, the seeming chaos is amazing.
''You see those are the rules, and some people made those rules, so people need to follows the rules, because the the rules are meant to be followed,any questions? ''😂😂
@Average Joesson crosswalks you can activate with flashing yellow lights work. Then just step in, if anyone hits you bicycle or car it's a easy lawsuit.
As someone who lives in the city of real London, stop signs as a concept used to confuse me when I was young. My thought process about stop signs sort of went like: “wait, so you drive up to a sign that says ‘stop’ then... what? You just get out your car right then and there and get a new one?”
Same, when I was a kid, I didn't understand stop signs because I was like "traffic lights tell you when to stop and when to go again, but these signs just tell you to stop. Do you just stop forever??" I think part of it was because in the part of London I grew up in there are to my memory hardly any stop signs at all. It was all about traffic lights and zebra crossings.
Stop signs are extremely uncommon in the UK. I have seen only two in the 6 years driving in England. It was a huge shock to me initially as I come from Bulgaria where stop signs are literally on every junction.
One of the big cultural changes I had to get used to driving here in Germany is the relative use of full-stops. In California, where I drove for something like 50 years, Stop signs are the default. Here in Germany they are very rare. The right over left rule dominates. By the way. I always come to a full stop at stop signs. Really.
The STOP-signs in Belgium that are mounted under traffic lights are to be ignored if the traffic lights work. They are only to be observed when the traffic lights are out of order (either on purpose, e.g. at night, or when there's a technical failure). This is actually written into the traffic dode of every European country, but you won't find this setup in every country.
The US has such a problem with stop signs (among other things). They have them at every other block on some streets to "deter speeding", but people still speed anyway, AND run the stop signs. What we need are speed humps that can be easily traversed at low speed but will mess up your car if you fly over them. Not speed bumps, speed _humps._
There is no POINT in stopping at a stop SIGN if you can see its CLEAR from a distance you Americans are such drama queens when it comes to any sort of sign be it speed limit signs of stop signs I shall refer to You as a KAREN
Nah, speed humps waste so much fuel- going down from 25 to 10-15 and back to 25 is so stupid. They also wear cars down a lot. What is needed is traffic calming- other then the stupid and pointless speed humps in my opinion.
There are two speed humps in my neighborhood that do their job way better than signs. You can cross them at 25mph without an issue which is far better than literally every other speed bump in the US that requires driving -2mph to avoid being slapped senseless like driving on a rock crawling trail. If we did something like that, we'd need to learn how to properly and consistently make good speed bumps.
@@Jack-qv2lj That's a $176 fine for doing a rolling stop, in my state, or worse for blowing through a stop sign if there's a cop or traffic camera involved. We don't like them either but law makers persist in finding ways to take our money on senseless laws that don't even protect people... so who exactly is a karen when all of us are in agreement?
I am Canadian. While i was in Italy driving i noticed similar similarities of limited stop sign use in their cities, driving in Italy was so effiient and enjoyable compared to driving in Canada. I know Italy is far from the Netherlands in terms of road design, but all of Europe is light years away from North American when it comes to road usage and trasnportation.
When the world is broken in such simple ways, it makes me angry, disappointed and hopeless. Netherlands is doing so many things right for transportation, JUST COPY IT. Finland is doing so many things right for education, JUST COPY IT. Singapore has solved their housing problem, JUST COPY IT. Some country has already figured out one or the other problem. It has already been done by someone, there is nothing to be invented, just observe, adjust and copy.
@@AlexanderVlasov It's not that simple. What works in the Netherlands, can't work in the same way in the USA exactly because the distance between homes, stores and work and sometimes even neighbours is just too big and given that the quality of roads in the USA in general is poorer, less well maintained/renewed compared to the Netherlands exactly because of economic reasons. We live in a rather densely populated area and can do stuff other countries can't or can't afford to copy. The same goes for the other things the opening poster mentioned, for various reasons, they can't be copied like a piece of paper.
@@AwoudeX Well yeah, the houses are far apart and businesses are far apart because of suburban r1 zoning. Instead of some quick and easy fix of just getting rid of stop signs to be like the Dutch, we can start with rezoning. The problem isn’t “we’re Americans therefore can’t be Dutch” is flawed because there is *nothing* stopping us from rezoning, redoing, and planning, the problem is that the US just always looks for a quick fix. If it can’t be solved by guns, money, or corruption, then it can’t be solved. If most Americans actually put in some effort we could adopt these plans, but that’s not going to happen.
I love it when UA-cam suggests random city lifestyle video's. I've just binge-watched most of your video's already. You have a great voice, and good quality video's. It's also great to see my own country through someone else's eyes. Gives me renewed enthusiasm for what could be considered the mundane. As for this video, I cycle to Utrecht several times a week, and I just now marvelled for the first time at how easy it is for me. To get from my home to the city centre there are no stop signs and three traffic lights (with one 'rechtsaf vrij') on half an hour by bike.
The ability to go long distances without ever stopping is incredible. It was something I never really appreciated until I started living here and experiencing it myself. I now try to "game" my routes to see if, with minor changes, I can avoid all traffic lights. It almost always works!
It's really impressive how the actual experience seems so seamless, that an average person won't even notice it. Yet for that it is so meticulously planned and designed!
just to be clear about the stop sign traffic light thing in Belgium. The stop sign is there in case the light doesn't work and the traffic can't function correctly. So normally the stop sign doesn't matter.
You know what would really make things safer? Not treating driver's licenses like free candy and giving them to people who are incapable of driving safely.
@@_CriminalArt_ That's the biggest problem, we designed cities so it's impossible to do anything without a car, then surprise, we have to significant lower the requirements to drive a car or people are stranded :(
@@Nota-Skaven In cities, it's much easier to do things without a car. Many people don't even own them, because there's tons of public transportation and things you can walk to. My wife didn't own a car when she lived in new york city.
@@Andrew-it7fb New York City, you mean the city famous for being a rare occasion of actually having good transit in North America? The east coast in general suffers far less from car dependency, with NYC being the most famous specifically because it sadly is not the norm (and of course the cities population size, which is likely linked)
0:22 It's clear why Canada has Stop signs: they're not to keep cyclists safe, they're for pedestrians trying to cross the intersection. If a car actually stops at a sign they have a better perspective and increased time to view pedestrians that might be trying to cross from the driver's right-to-left and vice-versa. Problem is most drivers just glide past the sign only looking out to the roadway to see if any oncoming traffic is approaching before turning right. I've seen so many close calls with people walking in this scenario and especially at night. I think a speed bump would be a good start. It's not just about bikes.
Maybe, but as a Canadian I can tell you Stop signs are excesivly used for the purpose to be used as a tool to slow down traffic and to give out driving infractions. The city will deliberatly put stops signs in very ineficient places knowing fullwell that people do not come to complete stops and the police at the end of the month hide and do full scale operations to hand out many $300+ tickets to both driver and cyclists.
It isn't just about stop signs, but the overuse of stop signs and bad street design that lead to the problems we have in America. Clearly, they don't have the same problems in many stopsign-less, north European countries. That's why he doesn't advocate for simply removing the stop signs, but for redesigning streets before they're gone altogether.
Bro, i think the purpose of the video flew right over your head. Canada and USA, face it has the worst urban planning out there relative to being a "1st world country". And I think your suggestion of adding a speedbump is exactly proof why roads out there are bad.
@@Muchacho2DMax Huh? Did you watch the video? Part of it was how things like bumps are used to make sure drivers slow down, thus eliminating the need for stop signs.
the junction at 1:23 and 4:50 is in my hometown in Diemen (right next to amsterdam). When i was younger i was biking from the horse mange back down that road at 4:50 (the bike path in the front of the shot) with a friend of mine. there was a stop sign back then but no speed bumps and warning signs etc. there was a car on the right side of the road in the front of the shot at 4:50 who wanted to go right and we were stopping at the main road to cross it so we looked at the driver and he was like: go ahead (we were going straight on the same road so he had to give way) BUT there was a car coming on the main road from the left who we all didnt see except for me at the last second. My friend started biking (with the slow start as you mentioned) and while i screamed it was already to late and she got hit by the car coming on the main road. She flew and hit the pavement and started crying. she broke her leg and foot but got saved by her bike pedal wich took most of the hit so her leg was not totally hit. she was taken to the hospital and was fine eventually. after that they started to make the junction safer and added the bumps and zigzag lines etc. a lot of roads used to be more dangerous and after accidents they often change how junctions work. Tought this was worth sharing :)
@@tomverseUK yes, i can't remember exactly, but she biked again and i reckon she started biking as soon as she could. I can see where you're coming from, but for young people here its just too much a part of normal life; going to school, going to friends, going to horseriding etc. So i think it doesn't even cross peoples minds that to stop using the bike is even a possibility, especially at a young age.
@@tomverseUK i think the trauma is more with crossing the street and being scared for cars then for being scared to bike. biking is like walking here, you wouldn't stop walking when you get hit by a car crossing the street as a pedestrian
@@bascep God, I need to move there. I wish my preference for the most efficient form of transport (the bike) didn't mark me out as a hobbyist here in Wales...
We have a relatively new junction in my city (Purmerend) that, since it's conception has seen a couple of accidents, with a very serious (almost fatal) one and local government failed to follow through. The weird thing is: on every level the junction in particular ignores some of the core principals of junction design: A 30 kilometer road that has a cycle path crossing the road is basically always designed so that car users or any other motorised traffic need to yield to the cyclists. This junction crosses a 30 kilometer road and car users have the right of way. Junction design will usually try to steer clear of dangerous situations developing from the simple fact that a deviation in design might cause car users to be confused and stop whereas people behind them might not expect that and hit them. Also, junction design will usually also take the level-surface (the "one big speed bump" explanation) design into account: in this case car users do not have to slow down because they hit a speed bump, but cyclists also don't experience one. I think there is also a rule that should a cyclist be coming from some kind of downwards sloping cycle path towards a junction it's more convenient (and less dangerous) to give cyclists the right of way, but this rule or recommendation has also been ignored, you come racing down from a bridge and then have to come to a full stop because it's a busy junction where, next to the lack of clarity in how it's designed it's also common for people to ignore the speed limit of 30 kilometers an hour and drive 50.
I'm not dutch, but I did do a cycling proficiency exam in primary school, I passed. I am actually very grateful that I did this because now I live in the Netherlands and my fiets is my main method of transport. I am so happy that it is relatively safe to cycle here as I loved to cycle as a kid.
ik had m nooit gehaald omdat ik op een plein fietste, vervolgens kwam ik in groep 8 op een andere basisschool en zei ik dat ik m nooit gehaald had. zei de leraar: wil je ook een fietsdiploma dan? ik was echt geschokkeerd dat zo'n diploma dus eigenlijk niks betekent en niks voorstelt
Here the infrastructure is designed to be as save as possible. In countries like Canada and the USA, they don't develop the roads to make them saver. They stay with what they always did. In the Netherlands they try to make it do no accidents happen. This is impossible, but the goal is to get it to 0. That means that even as a road isn't that old and it is dangerous. It will be changed. Also each new road gets the latest developments that makes it saver and old roads get updated if needed. Even the quality of the road is kept up to date to keep it save. That is shy the roads here look way better than in almost any other country.
Yup, that's why we also pay pretty high taxes. Whenever I'm in another country I can thankfully really see were all the taxmoney goes towards and it's well worth it! It's a little bit harder to see when you don't get to travel. Thankfully there are also videos like these for those that don't.
@@emiel1976ep wouldn't agree with the thing that we are way cheaper... Taxes going as high as 53% and 21% on most of the products. Also we have mandatory insurances.
@@l.l.6407 No you look ad taxes only, but take the USA. They pay less taxes but medical costs are way higher. As they get sick, they pay way more than we do. Also do they pay things like taxes but are called different. As the end, they pay more. Other countries in the EU pay lower taxes, but also get a lot less back for it. Only Greece is different. There you don't pay taxes and expect to get it for free. 😂😂
@@emiel1976ep they might pay more yeah, but therefore their income is averaged higher. So it compensates, but I fully have to agree that medical costs are higher.
In the UK we generally don't bother with a STOP sign, unless it is absolutely necessary. We instead have a "Give Way" sign. Which means exactly what you'd think - you must yield the right-of-way. That's used at a lot of junctions - the STOP sign is only used when visibility is poor or something like that and you absolutely have to stop to have enough time for effective observations.
If you encounter a stop sign in the UK, it's there because "We tried Give Way (yeild) and accidents proved it wasn't sufficient." You find them only where visibility is completely atrocious.
The only time I was in Groningen was during a school holiday time and I only got to see about four or five cyclists at a time in these intersections. I'll have to go back some time, but I don't know when!
I was thinking about those intersections in Groningen too. Very crowded, dozens of people crossing at the same time. But it never goes wrong, although I try to avoid those intersections at the start of a new college year with tons of new international students. They tried it in Rotterdam as well. Total failure..
@@ABC-ABC1234 if you watched his other videos you'd know he is a Canadian. And lived in other various other places, from Toronto to San Francisco and London to Brussels. Finally ending up in Amsterdam. Where will he finally end up is another thing.
Exactly. In all cases on the road there's the standard order of which instructions to follow. Instructions from people (police or traffic controllers) are always the highest authority, then electronic signals like traffic lights, then traffic signs, then the base rules. If a light is not working, follow the signs. If there are no signs, it's just a regular crossing now. Give way to the cars on the right, eye contact, negotiate, and you're on your way. (Note: some countries have the rule: "a non-functioning stop light becomes a stop sign")
It's the same as in the Netherlands, but without the stop signs. Instead, yield signs are used (for some sides of the intersection). So that begs the question: why do they use stop singns in Belgium at traffic lights?
@@Christian-ox7qx A yield sign and a stop sign are exactly the same but a stop sign asks you exactly what it says, to STOP. A yield sign asks you to slow down OR stop if necessary. Did you ever study the signs...? Please don't spread misinformation to others and do your reseach before you make a claim on something.
I hate stop signs when I’m driving in the states. But having been pulled over by the cops once for not coming to the total stop at a stop sign, now i always do, even if it seems ridiculous. It’s great to be back in Europe away from the land of stop signs!
3:10 In Belgium, stop signs at traffic lights are only used when the traffic lights are disabled at the junction. They are only present on dangerous junctions with multiple prioritary roads. In fact, those are rarely used because most junction got traffic lights with a yield sign instead.
03:26 For anyone wondering, this is how priority works if there are no signs or road marks. 1. Going straight has priority over someone across from you (i.e. on the same road) making a turn 2. Making a right hand turn has priority over someone across from you making a left hand turn 3. Traffic on the road to your right has priority over you Imagine a 4-way crossing. Car A on the left is turning left Car B on the bottom goes straight Car C on the right is turning right (so all cars are going up) In this case, priority should be C, B, A. What if the up/down road is a priority road? Well then both Car A and Car C would have sharks teeth and should give priority to the perpendicular road. Changing priority in; B, C, A
I grew up in England but moved to the US. Having grown up with roundabouts I view the 4 way stop intersection to be just about the most childish way to build an intersection. But I think even 8 year olds would be able to figure out a better solution. The few roundabouts I have seen in the US all have the wrong right of way rules and are thus even more absurd. I have concluded that 4 way stops are so popular because Americans just love stupid rules and it creates a great revenue source by sending out police to ticket people. In my neighborhood there is even a stop sign on a road without an intersection. There had been an intersection but during reconstruction one road was closed. But they left the stop sign where the intersection had been. Mini roundabouts as used in the UK should replace all 4 way stops. The main problem is that in the US, the concept of public service announcements on TV is not understood so there is no effective way of communicating changes to the population efficiently.
Most sensible: The Idaho stop law is the common name for a law that allows cyclists to treat a stop sign as a yield sign, and a red light as a stop sign
I love how you can see all those cyclists stop on the intersection while they're waiting for all the traffic on their right side to pass. It looks chaotic but it's so natural and it doesn't require a whole lot of thinking either.
one of my pet theories is that one of the reasons stop signs go over less well in europe because almost all cars are manual transmission and it's more of an annoyance to bring them out of a complete stop
@@UniversalKutub it kinda is, im a new driver, and i started treating stop signs as yield signs because rolling through in slow 2nd is much nicer than stopping and starting from 1st.
Where I live in Texas literally everyone stops at stop signs. Even if there isn't a soul in sight, people still stop at them like a ritual and they respect it. I can't believe how people just drive through them in this video.
I lived my whole life in Russia and last 4 years I am studying in Rotterdam (and plan to stay). And I am now used to so many things in the Netherlands, that when I watch these videos it really strikes me
Meanwhile, the town in Canada I just moved away from has spent the last several years slowly replacing every single intersection with 4-way stops in the name of "safety."
near where I live (in a cyclist friendly town in Germany), there is a junction where a street crosses a mayor bike path. It used to be, that the bike path had stop signs, and the street had priority signs. They probably counted vehicles, and came to the conclusion that this was stupid. Now the bikes get priority and the few cars ever driving there have a stopsign. The disadvantage on such crossings can be seen at another crossing near that: during rush hour, it is nearly impossible to cross the cycling path as a car, due to kids cycling to school.
I almost failed my first driving exam in The Netherlands back in 1999 for not completely stopping at a stop sign. It was only because the examiner noticed I was nervous yet did everything else during that ride by the book that he let me pass. I never even noticed the stop sign and I never really lost my blindspot for them.
Dont forget our driving exam (theory And practical part) And much longer And advanced compared to america. And we have to be 18 (or in Some cases 17 with an experienced driver next to you) which gives you more experience in The road (by bike)
In the UK it's very similar, stop signs are extremely rare. I drive a Tesla and recently it got this update to detect stop signs, I had to have a long hard think about where the nearest one might be; Turns out it was 15 miles away, past the 5 roundabouts and no traffic lights. It was only there because there's buildings right up to the road edge so it's not possible to check if the road is clear without fully stopping. Most US stop signs seem like they should be a yield/give way sign but they accidentally put up the wrong sign. I guess if they changed that now people would just fly through the yield signs and crash so it's a tough one to fix, can't fix stupid!
The uniform is Dutch police, so he's not a Nazi-Nazi as in German occupiers. *Probably* not, I should say, as the role of the Dutch police forces in WW2, especially in Amsterdam, has been rather... *questionable* at the very least.
At first I thought it looked a bit like mr H himself. But on closer examination I figured it out ;-) He was also never actually in the Netherlands in that period.
yeah the only ones ive seen was one in a pokey village and another right near a driving test centre which i think it was only kept there for driving tests haha
After living 4 years in the US and soon moving back to Europe, driving infrastructure here is one of the things I'll miss the least. Strodes, stop signs, 4+ lane highways. For a country so dependent on cars you'd think they'd value car infrastructure more.
The stop signs under traffic lights are actually common across Belgium, not just in Brussels. And they're just a fallback in case the light fails (or is turned of at night).
I know in the US there are a few intersections with both Stop Signs and Traffic Lights; but I never knew what they where for. In some cities, they just switch the Traffic Lights to the 'Flashing' mode at night (or whenever the traffic density is low enough to do so) so the intersection functions as a 2 way stop (assuming it's a 4 way intersection); giving the higher priority roads flashing yellow for yielding, and the others flashing red for stopping.
In London, tiny "circles" are used at some intersections that would be four way stops in the US. Drivers would look left and roll through. But I found it harder as a pedestrian. Neither cars nor bikes (mostly scooters) were interested in stopping to let pedestrians cross.
Having the road raised at junctions is also useful for pedestrians pushing prams or people using wheelchairs, who then don't have to negotiate high kerbs.
In the UK stop signs are used incredibly rarely and each one needs a specific piece of legislation before it can be placed. We're not very cycle friendly at all, but at least we got that right. Our roundabouts are dangerous for cyclists though - they habitually remove them in cities and replace them with lights to improve safety. Hopefully we will get some more of the Dutch design ones soon.
My town in Colorado replaced a lot of stop signs with yield, or nothing at all. It works well. In places where it snows, you can't depend on only surface markings.
I was queued up for ages at a junction (in Canada) the other day, thinking that 4 way stops have to be the slowest way of controlling traffic that has ever been invented!!!
4:13 (and 5:31) wow that part of the video is really amazing - so many cyclists and cars driving and crossing each others way and literally no one seems unsafe or is even crashing. This is so awesome!
This makes me think about some rural, large roads in Italy, with ridiculously low speed limits: forcing people to go that slow (50 km/h) on streets where it feels right to go faster (70 km/h as a minimum, 90 km/h still wouldn't hurt anyone) _does not_ make it safer, because people will feel the need to check the speedometer every minute at the expense of paying attention to the road, which includes other cars and at times some wild animals.
I think it's also important to notice that most bikers in the Netherlands are also cardrivers and the other way around. So you understand eachother. Thank you for your video!
What confused me the most while living in South Africa compared to Europe in regards to traffic has always been stop signs. You'd often get a stop sign for the traffic going straight at a T junction, made absolutely no sense as you'd always see a car managing to get there, a yield sign would make more sense. Same thing when there was a circle, about 10m of lane, a four way stop, 3m of lane, another four way stop, about 5m, a circle, about 5m of road, and then a traffic light (robot for those South African). Not a single person treated it as a stop sign, always a yield sign. It basically means that you can never swap to yield signs as people got conditioned that yield signs mean you always have right of way rather than that they mean a 4 way yield is whoever arrives first may go first.
Truth hey. As a south african I agree, we always treat stops as yields, which work really well for us, or so we think. The idea of stopping at a stop if you are the only one there or going to be the first to arrive is foreign to me. So too is the european habit of obeying pedestrian traffic lights and only using crosswalks. If there is no car, why should I wait for the magical green light to say it is safe if i know that there are no cars? Cars here love skipping pedestrian traffic lights (and our mini bus taxi's do not acknowledge any form of road signage) , which keeps life interesting. Our urban planning makes no sense though, but we are sadly car-bound due to safety as we have extremely high crime rates.
@@heinoobermeyer7566 "Our urban planning makes no sense though" For Cape Town, you have a giant mountain and a failure of a railway system and people constantly destroying stuff, resulting in a car requirement (though Atlantic seaboard has a pretty good bus system). Sprawl exists for everything built post 2000 or so (looking at Durbanville etc.) For Johannesburg you have it similar to the US with the urban sprawl, you basically need a car. It's just extremely strange considering a majority in South Africa cannot afford a road, townships actually have better routes within them than suburbia does (though I'd never want to be in one due to crime, space, etc.).
@@Masterrunescapeer The mountain is very good for navigating though, I always know where I am lol. I really just wish we had safe, quality, public transport as it would help deal with the sprawl and gridlock. But the safety concerns would result in almost all such efforts being meaningless.
...it's especially nice when cycling because it makes it possible to take an entire trip without stopping... This phrase is so beautiful that I got a little puddle in the corner of my eye.
Similarly, I noticed that when wearing motorbike gear, I rode far more recklessly by default, because I felt safer than I was. Without gear, I rode more cautiously and attentively by default, because I felt vulnerable. Paradoxically, I was a safer rider without safety gear on. Of course, this is trading 'likelihood of accident' for 'severity of accident', so it isn't a perfect analogy, but it rests on the same psychology as the removal of stop signs. If people feel vulnerable and responsible for their own safety, they are more careful. If they feel coddled by safety culture, they are less careful.
Bicyclists in the Netherlands are not bothered by traffic signs or traffic lights. for a Dutch bicyclist a red traffic light means "Go ahead. Cars will stop for you anyway." Orange means: "Go ahead. Cars will stop for you anyway." Green means: "Go ahead. Cars will stop for you for sure" It's all due to Dutch legislation where a drunk bicyclist, cycling on the wrong side of the road and running a red light is not at fault, because "that's what cyclists do and you as a driver should know and anticipate that."
In Portland, Oregon, cyclists are allowed to treat stop signs as yields. It's very nice and takes noticibly less effort to get around areas where there is a stop sign every other block.
And then you get the folks who think "can treat stop sign as yield" means "automatic right of way I'll just blow past the line of six cars and weave around the guy already turning here", but they were doing it before the law changed as well. There's some point of critical density. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and, whether it was official or not, nobody cared if cyclists or cars treated stop signs as yield and stoplights as signs as long as it wasn't rush hour. At the other side of the critical point there's an intersection near where I live (SE 26th and Steele for folks who know Portland) where some weirdness about major streets becoming less major and off-highway traffic spreading into the area means you can at times get a whole bunch of folks coming from any direction trying to go any direction and a stop sign feels necessary, even at lighter-traffic parts of the day you have no idea what speed mindset people are hitting the intersection with and a 4-way stop really helps. Then in between there's all the side roads and smaller neighborhoods where the signs basically just mark which road has the right of way if someone happens to be coming by at the same time, and yield there makes sense.
The only time stop signs annoy me as an American driver is when they're in parking lots. I'm already going under 10mph I think I'll be fine with a simple yield. Also, the mindset one SHOULD have at a stop sign isn't "I've stopped, so I can go now." rather "I've stopped, carefully checked my surroundings for other motorists/pedestrians/cyclists and have determined that it is now safe for me to continue." People that just roll through every stop sign they encounter are the problem. Not the stop sign itself. People are the problem in America. No one gives a shit here. People get out of Drivers Ed and go "well, I'm never going to use any of what I just learned ever again". I guarantee if you took a bunch of American drivers and stuck them in the middle of one these European cities (even if you educated them on how the roads work there first) there would be a massive uptick in accidents because they would simply refuse to comply.
@Tonto that because in America any person can train any other person to drive. which can transfer bad habits to the new driver and go take their road and it is very cheap. in england and I believe and in Europe only licensed professional can train you and it cost a few thousand dollars to get your license. So ppl take it more seriously.
Fun fact (although it may be different in your state), stop signs in parking lots are not actually legal traffic control devices so you can't be ticketed for them, and don't technically _have to_ obey them. The exception however, is for stop signs at the egress before you turn onto the road, that one is controlling road traffic, therefore legal.
I honestly think we need an entire upheaval of our driving education, culture and infrastructure before we're even close to being ready to get rid of stop signs in North America.
There is no intrinsic difference between Americans and Europeans. I don’t understand how you could leave a video with the impression that it was anything other than road design. I mean he specifically said drivers that aren’t paying attention or listening to rules will be slowed down by the design of the road.
I work as a delivery driver in the Southeast USA. Part of our work protocol is following safety standards on the road, which is normal and good. We should. And the people that I work for have measures in place to monitor all of the drivers in their fleet to ensure that the safety standards are followed. I have opinions on that but they aren't relative here. However, they track our driving not only with cameras on our windshield, which are bulky and add an extra blindspot, but also by tapping into the delivery trucks onboard computer. The result of this means that all of our drivers are paranoid to high heaven because we can and will be fired if our safety metrics aren't high enough. Safety protocol should be followed, the metrics should read high, I'm in agreement with that. After all, it's my life on the line. But for my company, the metrics have become their god almost, and because our drivers are so paranoid now we become less safe. The cameras and the computers track the speed of the truck and the speed limit signs so precisely that if we pass the sign going too fast, regardless of traffic around us or how visible the sign is, we will get a mark. Most of our drivers will drive under the speed limit just so they can keep their job, which, inside of the high speed arenas we have to drive in, is just as unsafe if not more so than going too fast. The cameras are watching the traffic lights and will notate a mark against us if we yield a right turn at a red light. Purely because the rulebook states you have to come to a complete stop whether you yield or not. It doesn't matter how badly such an action blocks the traffic behind the truck, or how fast traffic is moving behind you, in order to yield we have to stop first. And the reason for this comment being under this video is because if stop signs. I could not agree more with this attitude toward stop signs. I was beginning to think I was one of the only ones to feel this way about them. Given how many T-intersections in our roads, blind spots in our vehicles, and the incredibly high speeds that we are often expected to merge into; I can actually see where a few of our stop signs are actually safer, but the vast majority of them are pointless, useless and waste valuable time. And time is money in my job, quite literally. Because ironically we are paid more in bonuses the faster we are. There are so many stop signs that only serve to block traffic rather than regulate it. I'm looking specifically at you neighborhoods and suburbia. If I may, I think it helpful to think of traffic and traffic safety in terms of anatomy. Traffic is the life blood of a town or city and anything that obstructs it's flow is a clog. Too many of those and you end with heart failure. I really wish my bosses understood this so that I could actually drive safely, because the way they make me drive now is much more unsafe. Since when did rules and metrics become more important than human life? Sigh... Thank you for giving voice to many concerns that I've had for years. I love the work that your doing and I hope that the knowledge your sharing will one day become the standard for all road users. Thank you
1:23 yikes, here where I live in rural area in finland we do not know the consept of stopping a bicycle. Unless there is car right there on the road at that exact moment
Yes, I came to the comments to see what people made of that. Why is there yield signs in the road and a stop sign on the post? They contradict each other. And about the stop signs under a traffic light, here in sweden we have those signs in case the traffic light is broken, then you revert to the signs. Some have stop signs while others have yield signs and if one of the roads is a major road it usually has a "main route" sign. (I have no idea what those are called in english)
And how to recognize if a car driver has been in the Netherlands: Looks over his right should before every right turn. Also: I able to spot bicyclist without light in the dark, in the rain, crossing an intersection from the wrong way.
Except didn't grow up in the Netherlands and did the same thing, proper city driving where everything isn't suburbia (as in you have lots of pedestrians running around the place that often don't follow the rules). I've probably been in more car accidents and witnessed more car accidents than most in first world countries, I make it a point to have car insurance change the question from "How many accidents have you been in?" to "How many while I was driving?", so four, of which none yet have been my fault. (This all in South Africa, never been in an accident in Europe/US; one case of car is stopped in traffic, taxi took out my left side, one case of taxi taking out my mirror, another with trolley man going on a 4 lane highway at night on a mountain side (Google Groote Schuur and check the highway intersection to the south), and then another of a truck jack knifing on a highway, that last one was probably one of the scariest moments of my life as there's nothing you can do as you know you won't be able to break in time but you're hoping you're going to slow down enough and that the car's crumple zone will be good enough, think I hit at 40kmph, down from 120, I was fine, person left to me got rushed to hospital, car write off).
I live in the Dominican Republic where stop signs are a thing but not respected by drivers. The natural fluidity seemed so chaotic when I moved here. Now, it's so normal I cannot stand going back to the US!
Wait you don't yield to the person on your right when there's no signs at an intersection? How do you handle it then, seems like such a basic thing to me I didn't even think there could be some place that didn't use that :D
I learned right of way but the problem is....no matter if others have the right of way or not, they will take it. Courtesy has gone out the window in America. We treat each other like dirt and especially when we're in our cars.
@@matousfiala5925 Whoever gets there first is the actual rule in America. 'Yield to the person on the left' is the backup I think? I could be wrong, it rarely comes up. Usually both people stop and then sort of play chicken with who can wait longest.
The street in front of our small, local university was 4-lane w/ a center island that made it feel like a 5-lane. Was 25 MPH, but people flew down it. ... City changed that to 2 automobile lanes & 2 bike lanes. That simple change in lane markings dramatically slowed traffic.
![The Wrong Way to Set Speed Limits [ST06]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bglWCuCMSWc/mqdefault.jpg)
2:02 Can you spot the cyclist? She's right here, behind the elephant!
I know you're not supposed to laugh at your own jokes, but I laughed so hard at this several times as I was editing it.
When is our interview scheduled to go live on your channel?
It was a good joke
And the elephant was hidden by the A-pillar!
I cracked up man that was hilarious
@@NotJustBikes it really was a good joke. Got a wet chuckle from me
In Australia everyone stops at Stop signs. They are only used on blind intersections.
You shouldn't overuse warning signage. Using it where it doesn't need to be, means that it will be ignored when it is needed.
Yeah, coming from NZ where they're also rare and now living in Canada, I'm finding this out first hand. They're in so many places where Aus/NZ would use a Give Way sign that they just kind of blur together in Canada. It's also not helpful that the Canadians use 4 way stop signs where the rule is that whoever got to the intersection first has right of way. Madness.
Same here in Sweden. Stop signs are rare enough that almost everyone respects them. Yield signs are also respected and plentyful, which is good because the standard rule of "give way to the right" in unmarked intersections does not seem to have stuck very well from the driver's education in most people.
@@thunderball44 why not just use a roundabout than use whatever a 4 way stop intersection is.
I came here to say the same thing. Plus the Belgian stop on traffic lights is technically correct but they should take a lesson from the Australian version where it has 3 black spots overlaid on the stop sign to indicate if the traffic lights aren't working then you treat it like a stop sign.
@@ElizabethJones-pv3sj That only is a thing in NSW. No such thing exists in VIC.
You know someone has assimilated into Dutch culture successfully when they roll their eyes and say “Ungh, Belgium” 🙄
It also helps that I lived in Brussels for two years. ;)
He was not with the Belgium remark though. It’s just chaos over here.
The stop sign on the traffic light is for when the traffic light doesn’t work.
RoadRage brussel used be great... as it was dutch speaking. But slowly The wallonians (French speakers) took over.
I would like to live in belgium since police dont steal your electric skateboard there unfortunately in the netherlands they do because of shitty laws electric one wheel is legal here because they could not imagine it being motorised when making the rules so according to the rules it cant be a vehicle the one wheel users still get stoped by police and theg steal them too although they do give it back after 3 months or longer which is not the case for electric skateboards they destroy it... very nice country indeed....
As a Dutch guy im learning so much about my outside world that i take for granted.
Same here.
@@yvarmarkdeboer7118 maar echt he😂😂😂
Ja maar echt 😂 ben een paar keer in de US geweest en dat voelt zo onveilig daar
Daarom ben ik geabonneerd
Inderdaad, Het is echt zeer interessant om zo het buitenland te bekijken.
I feel like the US and Canada use stop signs so much that people just lose their respect for them, and when stops signs are actually needed in dangerous intersections, people will still just yield. In Norway, we have very few stop signs, which means that when there is a stop sign, people respect it and stop
They're waaaay overused, and for this reason, most people (myself included) don't have a great deal of respect for them. I actually do a better stop for level crossings with lights and gates (habit - I'm a bus driver) than many stop signs. Easily 80% could be replaced with yield signs. Uncontrolled intersections wouldn't work in many places because Americans drivers aren't smart enough to handle that
Lmao out here in US people don’t even yield anymore. They just pop into traffic and expect everyone else not to crash.
This isn’t always the case - in the UK, stop signs are quite rare here too, and stop signs are usually only put in when they’re actually needed.
However, despite (or possibly in part due to) their rarity, a large minority of drivers don’t actually properly stop anyway. If you have an old intersection in the middle of the New Forest that causes cyclists to be in a driver’s blind spot on approach, and drivers don’t stop at the stop sign, you can begin to see the issue…
Yeah, in most US intersections the lower-priority road gets a stop sign BY DEFAULT. Thus, it is more reliably a priority indicator than a genuine need to stop.
Also, Oregon recently they passed a law allowing bicycles to yield at stop signs if the intersection is clear, but keep in mind this is as an exception to the default traffic rules.
Its true, A Stop Sign is used in basically every single intersection that isn't signaled.... all of them....
You cant go down a middle of nowhere road that meets another middle of nowhere road, with nothing but empty fields for miles, without hitting a damn stop sign.
You would see the oncoming car long before the stop sign itself.... but better put one in anyways. because North America
Stop signs being the equivalent of "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" had me laughing out loud. It's so accurate that it's just depressing. As a Dutchie now living and cycling in Canada, I hate stop signs with a passion. And I miss the Dutch cycling infrastructure so much.
I only know 2 intersections with stop signs in my area. Both demand you to stop because right up to the intersection there is a wall blocking the view for 1 side.
The only time stop signs should be used! When stopping to be able to see, is actually required.
@@tardvandecluntproductions1278 I'm glad my home country of Russia has similar standards. I like being able to proceed thru a junction if it's obviously clear without needing to stop and waste more petrol to get back up to speed. There's a few stop signs in my area. They're either at junctions with bad visibility, or at level crossings with no gates, barriers or even lights.
Though there's a few level crossings where even a stop sign is unnecessary, because there's a closed railway gate right next to the road, and it's easy to tell whether a train is coming through or not just by it's position.
And because we have such a car first society in Canada, drivers get pissy when you roll through a stop sign on a bike...when in reality you're basically going at the same speed as most drivers rolling through them too! But...drivers like to target cyclists because they find cyclists annoying and an impedance to traffic!
@@tardvandecluntproductions1278 This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about when I said:
A stop sign is saying "We designed this intersection so badly it can only be made safe by coming to a complete stop.".
Don't put a stop sign where the driver can see, make sure he can see. I bet the truck drivers can't see very well even if they did stop right?
@@newperve I understand that too frequent and inappropiate use of stop signs are shit but usage of stop signs in blind intersections is the right call. Sometimes you have to use a stop sign because the thing thats creating the blind spot could be an entire building or a hill and thats not something you can really workaround unless you want to evict people and pay thousands in destruction efforts.
As an American living in the Netherlands, one thing I appreciate is that Stop Signs are so rare, that when you come across one, you take it more seriously. (even if plenty of people just ignore it altogether)
Stop signs are legal issue. If there is an accident and there is no light or stop signs, The city can and will be sued for millions for negligence .
@@jaimefish173 Another thing I like about the Netherlands: When I first came here, I noticed that none of the canals have railings to stop people from falling in them. I commented that the city could get sued for that. The answer I got: "No they would not. The city would just call you an idiot for falling in the first place."
They have an attitude of just don't be an idiot, while in the US the attitude is everyone is an idiot.
Azivegu that is pretty accurate yes! The world is so much easier and relaxed if instead you getting sued for others being idiots, the idiots get called out for being idiots and get a “what have you learned” speech.
@@Azivegu you'll notice in amsterdam the sidewalk is never next to the canal, it's always on the side with the houses. essentially, you're not meant to walk next to the water. the canals are open because historically they were used for docking. the center used to be filled with boats everywhere. even though it's much less now it's still used as such. sometimes you hear about cars rolling into the canals because they weren't in park. the city never gets sued, the owner ends up getting billed by the fire department for being a dumbass lmao
@@jaimefish173 If only people would take some responsibilities in traffic themselves...
I am an Urban Planning student from England who has always been interested in Dutch urban planning. I think the UA-cam algorithm just recommended me the perfect channel.
I'm sure you already know about the channel called 'City Beautiful' and 'Armchair Urbanist', but if you don't, they're fantastic resources as well.
In return, if you know of any other channels, please tell me :D
@@saketjawaji1557 Thank you this was very useful.
@@saketjawaji1557 Melissa & Chris Bruntlett?!
Would you like to come and redo my town?
It did, welcome aboard!
4:58 One thing I noticed here. The stop line is forward enough where if you actually stop at the line, you can see left and right clearly, AND you're not blocking the bikes behind you. Too often North American roads put the stop line behind an intersecting crosswalk/bike path, which is fine. The issue is, if you actually stop there, some intersections don't give you enough visibility to actually see left and right, so you're forced to proceed into the sidewalk/bike crossing, blocking anyone trying to cross. This is especially problematic in urban areas, but even driving in suburban areas, I can't even trust the stop line!
The stop lines are so that large trucks can make the turn if a car is stopped there but it’s still rarely enough room
Yes! Thank you. Recently a building by me put up a dumpster at a T intersection so you couldn't see incoming traffic that doesn't have to stop. I have a roll an entire car length beyond the stop line before I can even see if it's safe to proceed
And don't ever stop in the crosswalk during a driving test, or you will flunk. Even police will do a "California stop" at stop signs.
So here's a weird one: This town in Germany got rid of ALL of the signs, crosswalks, speed limits, everything. Turns out the pedestrians were safer, the auto drivers actually drove slower and were more careful. They attribute part of the improvement to the fact that there isn't a tone of regulatory crap the driver has to keep track of.
No citations? Where’s the research to back up what you say?
@@larryparis925 this is a youtube comment
@@pprav987 A comment in which you made numerous claims. With no information to back up those claims. By the way, I know of a town in Switzerland that was taken over by aliens from the planet Xenon. Now, I’m not going to tell you how I know that. You’ll just have to trust me.
@@rex8255 Excellent! Many thanks, Rex.
I heard this when I was very young like 15 years ago. I'm wondering why this strategy has not been adopted?
Welcome to another episode of "wait this is a problem in other countries?"
LMAO I MEAN LITTERLY HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH LOL, LMAO, RAAP ME OP, IK GA BROKO
@@basguerain5900 Literally*
Dutch people correcting each other on English spelling is 100% charmingly Dutch
@@jsgang Well I did spend 16 years of my life living in an English speaking country(Ireland) so....I think I have more of a right to do so than most Dutchies. Especially as I also went to school there as a teenager ;)
hahahahahah ja maar echt!!!
"In the Netherlands, the concept of a stop sign was first introduced in 1941 by the German occupation force."
brb, dying
@Klantvinder.com Shit I remember learning about this law change as it was happening in primary school. x'D Something like "Prins op de fiets".
@@TeshnosFire geef het door, rechts gaat voor haha
@Klantvinder.com this law was never accepted, meaning that every form of traffic share the same set of basic regulations, including the Give Way to the Right.
@Plan B marketing. Advies & Management Apperantly a lot of people don't know the change because I needed to stop several times because a car didn't stop for me on a bicycle and came from the right. So stopping it is because getting under a car doesn't sound fun
@@nicoledijkstra7168 I worked in the Netherlands recently, and got to ride a bike there.
It was really refreshing to see how much car drivers are aware of bikes. maybe i'm too used to drive defensively, but i surely held up traffic once or twice when stopping at an intersection i wouldn't dare to cross in germany, but in .nl the cars stopped and waved for me to go on.
great cycling infrastructure helps of course to separate traffic and keep almost everyone happy.
No idea why youtube put this in my recommendations, but the elephant was worth it.
This is excellent. I’m a Dutch guy living in Japan, and it always amazes me how people indeed follow the rules but it does not result in them paying attention. For instance, when crossing a railroad track, you have to come to a complete stop. Everyone does it, but no-one actually checks if there are any trains coming.
You stop at train tracks in Japan? Are there no gates so you just have to look or get smashed? Lmao
@@lukasg4807 There should be gates and flashing lights and a sound alarm. Not having these is madness.
@@leandrog2785 There are. When a train is 30s+ away, the bell dings (forever...) and the gates start coming down. The gates are down with ~15s left before the train gets there. You are in 0 danger of getting stuck on the tracks, so no worries. Plus it's a massive object in your peripheral vision for a long distance (since you stop before the tracks, it's in your field of vision for hundreds of meters usually, generally very straight track)
I've seen a few w/o gates outside of Tokyo, and maybe that's where the original commenter lives, outside of big cities. Here in Tokyo we don't need to look left/right when stopping at the tracks for the above reasons. We stop anyway because Japanese are nothing if not rule-observant.
its funny: the bikes are moving through intersections in the same way that people think self-driving cars could move through intersections
I found that noteworthy as well.
Thats why the self-driving car most likely will never find a foothold in Europe (And then West Europe and Scandinavia specifically), because the roads and the city design aren't set up for it (Roads and streets aren't wide enough basically). You can say the same about Japan.
@@nickdentoom1173 Why would you need wide streets? Just like smaller cars are more normal in Europe, so will smaller self driving cars be. Not to mention at by the point we have self driving cars then they will all be electrict meaning a smaller car is more prefered for effeciency. And if infrastructure and technology move the right way we can have dirt cheap small self driving ubers for the city, high speed rails between cities for longer travel and only people living in the countryside will have the need for bigger EV-cars.
Ah, but do self-driving cars have blind spots ?
@@FlushGorgon we dont know yet
My mom's friend from the UK came over to visit us here in Canada. She asked "Do you seriously have to stop at every one of these top signs?".
No wonder. They're used sparingly at the UK for blind/dangerous junctions so if you see one there's a good reason for you to stop and not just give way. A good driver from the UK would expect to always come to a full stop at a stop sign
How does anyone pass driving exams if they never stop at stop signs?
@@TheSpearkan they stop when they need too. ie. people around, cops there, driving test. after that, they dont care...
@@StarFyreXXX Yep, where I live I prob roll at least 80% of stop signs and I've never gotten a ticket. Its expected
I live in the netherlands, and its so weird hearing you talk about things that i find completely normal but people from other countries don't.
Same here.
I’m in love with your country lol
zoals een washandje, dat is dus ook echt een nederlands ding!
Pixu SSB Dankjewel!
(Thanks)
Inderdaad
"So if you think people should stop for a stop sign in all cases, you are literally more extreme than Nazi's"
Well, that escalated quickly.
@@Lampropeltis History happens to be on his side, in this case.
I don't like eggplant, but I don't blame Nazis for its existence.
Even at blind intersections a stop sign is hardly used in the Netherlands, if you can't see to the right you automatically stop out of practice. After all you can't give way to someone if you can't see them.
Yep. But it's recommended to keep it clear for everyone. Especially tourist drivers. At some bad visibility junctions I wish they put a sign under it saying "and look both ways"
@@tr33c21 as a tourist you should be more careful you don't know the place. And from abroad double because you don't know the customs.
@@redsheppard5618 Most European countries have the rule to give way to the person on the right, so most people know it anyways.
American's are too self centered to think that way. It's astounding but where I live we have right hand turn yield lanes so anyone turning right can just go, have their own merge lane that no one else can use and people still stop at them because they need to get into the far lane and cant be bothered to take an extra 2 minutes out of their day to just go with the intended flow of traffic.
Sometimes the sign "dangerous crossing" is placed.
As if you couldn't see that yourself.
After a full day of binging your videos my husband and I are like 70% seriously talking about just up and moving with our kids to the Netherlands. One can dream.
USA mindset: "But without stop signs for people to run and get ticketed for, how are you going to fund your police department that enforces our useless traffic laws?" After traveling to Amsterdam last summer, I felt like the US was a primitive country. Would say "developing," but that would imply actively making progress towards something better, which we are not.
Bro same god damn story. Same city in Europe. Left with the ame opnion about my home.
Welp your not wrong were a 3rd world country pretending to be a world power
It's ironic, in history people originally left Europe (and to an extent, Asia) to what are now the USA and Canada for a better life. Now, if people from those countries want said better life, they're better off staying on their continents. XD
@@skepticanadian3041 yep
@Quill Maurer actually the US seems to be backsliding in its development
I used to work voor Rijkswaterstaat ( the ministery responsible for the roads) and when designing a new road we were mandatory by law to put some innovation in the new design. Don't now if this is still the case.
Waarom lees ik dat nu voor het eerst? Dat is toch mooi man? Heerlijk land leven we in.
Lopen nog steeds een aantal interessante projecten zo te zien.
Yes., one of the things I like about the Netherlands, is that we are always looking to improve things.
That's pretty cool.
Scary concept, mandatory innovations aren't always improvements.
Ironically coordinated chaos is much safer than clear set out structure. If you are driving in NL you also have to pay attention to some degree while driving in the USA for example you can kinda phase out because roads are to overstructured meaning you lose concentration which results in accidents
That's because we evolved to handle chaos, not a set of tightly defined rules covering simple situations. Our minds just aren't adapted to the sort of structure planners often think is best. Your mind rations attention because there's a limit to the amount of mental processing you can do, and it's always needed for something else. So a highly ordered situation will signal the brain to lower attention to that situation and either partially rest or consider another aspect of your struggle for survival. That's what worked when we were evolving and so that's how your brain works.
Also, texting/talking on the phone while driving is a serious problem in the U.S. This is partially enabled because it's too easy to drive distractedly without consequence. If our roads were designed slightly more chaotically, with more roundabouts and yield signs instead of stops, drivers would be forced to pay attention and drive deliberately.
@@InventorZahran Don't even get me started on people first in line at the traffic light who think red light time is phone time, and thus miss when the light turns green. Pay attention you stupid zoomers, Facebook will still be there when you reach your destination.
Very true, if I am tired driving its safer to speed. Which is a sign I need to hit the next hotel
I've been to cities in China and Mongolia where it is definite ironic coordination. Everyone must pay attention or get wrecked. There are few accidents and the volume of traffic, the seeming chaos is amazing.
I can imagine the French guys stealing the Paris stop sign waving it around Paris like a revolutionary tricolor.
Damn.
''You see those are the rules, and some people made those rules, so people need to follows the rules, because the the rules are meant to be followed,any questions? ''😂😂
Yep. Solid logic. Let's put stop signs everywhere. 😂
@@NotJustBikes Yes and lets be more extreme than the German occupation force regarding road rules. 😂
@@NotJustBikes 'befehl ist befehl' comes to mind for some reason
@Average Joesson crosswalks you can activate with flashing yellow lights work. Then just step in, if anyone hits you bicycle or car it's a easy lawsuit.
@@NotJustBikes You forgot "We cannot discuss doing things different because that would break the rules."
Weird, never thought about this while riding my bike or car here in the Netherlands. We got so used to it
Uhu, exactly!
Kom je wel achter als je naar Amerika of Canada gaat.
As someone who lives in the city of real London, stop signs as a concept used to confuse me when I was young.
My thought process about stop signs sort of went like: “wait, so you drive up to a sign that says ‘stop’ then... what? You just get out your car right then and there and get a new one?”
Same, when I was a kid, I didn't understand stop signs because I was like "traffic lights tell you when to stop and when to go again, but these signs just tell you to stop. Do you just stop forever??" I think part of it was because in the part of London I grew up in there are to my memory hardly any stop signs at all. It was all about traffic lights and zebra crossings.
Stop signs are extremely uncommon in the UK. I have seen only two in the 6 years driving in England. It was a huge shock to me initially as I come from Bulgaria where stop signs are literally on every junction.
One of the big cultural changes I had to get used to driving here in Germany is the relative use of full-stops. In California, where I drove for something like 50 years, Stop signs are the default. Here in Germany they are very rare. The right over left rule dominates. By the way. I always come to a full stop at stop signs. Really.
The STOP-signs in Belgium that are mounted under traffic lights are to be ignored if the traffic lights work. They are only to be observed when the traffic lights are out of order (either on purpose, e.g. at night, or when there's a technical failure). This is actually written into the traffic dode of every European country, but you won't find this setup in every country.
The US has such a problem with stop signs (among other things). They have them at every other block on some streets to "deter speeding", but people still speed anyway, AND run the stop signs. What we need are speed humps that can be easily traversed at low speed but will mess up your car if you fly over them. Not speed bumps, speed _humps._
There is no POINT in stopping at a stop SIGN if you can see its CLEAR from a distance you Americans are such drama queens when it comes to any sort of sign be it speed limit signs of stop signs I shall refer to You as a KAREN
@@Jack-qv2lj Why are you being so rude to someone you clearly agree with? Both of your comments are complaining about the overuse of stop signs.
Nah, speed humps waste so much fuel- going down from 25 to 10-15 and back to 25 is so stupid.
They also wear cars down a lot.
What is needed is traffic calming- other then the stupid and pointless speed humps in my opinion.
There are two speed humps in my neighborhood that do their job way better than signs. You can cross them at 25mph without an issue which is far better than literally every other speed bump in the US that requires driving -2mph to avoid being slapped senseless like driving on a rock crawling trail. If we did something like that, we'd need to learn how to properly and consistently make good speed bumps.
@@Jack-qv2lj That's a $176 fine for doing a rolling stop, in my state, or worse for blowing through a stop sign if there's a cop or traffic camera involved. We don't like them either but law makers persist in finding ways to take our money on senseless laws that don't even protect people... so who exactly is a karen when all of us are in agreement?
I am Canadian. While i was in Italy driving i noticed similar similarities of limited stop sign use in their cities, driving in Italy was so effiient and enjoyable compared to driving in Canada. I know Italy is far from the Netherlands in terms of road design, but all of Europe is light years away from North American when it comes to road usage and trasnportation.
When the world is broken in such simple ways, it makes me angry, disappointed and hopeless. Netherlands is doing so many things right for transportation, JUST COPY IT. Finland is doing so many things right for education, JUST COPY IT. Singapore has solved their housing problem, JUST COPY IT. Some country has already figured out one or the other problem. It has already been done by someone, there is nothing to be invented, just observe, adjust and copy.
The problem is that people don't need solutions. They need solutions matching their bias.
Amen
@@AlexanderVlasov It's not that simple. What works in the Netherlands, can't work in the same way in the USA exactly because the distance between homes, stores and work and sometimes even neighbours is just too big and given that the quality of roads in the USA in general is poorer, less well maintained/renewed compared to the Netherlands exactly because of economic reasons. We live in a rather densely populated area and can do stuff other countries can't or can't afford to copy.
The same goes for the other things the opening poster mentioned, for various reasons, they can't be copied like a piece of paper.
@@AwoudeX Well yeah, the houses are far apart and businesses are far apart because of suburban r1 zoning. Instead of some quick and easy fix of just getting rid of stop signs to be like the Dutch, we can start with rezoning. The problem isn’t “we’re Americans therefore can’t be Dutch” is flawed because there is *nothing* stopping us from rezoning, redoing, and planning, the problem is that the US just always looks for a quick fix. If it can’t be solved by guns, money, or corruption, then it can’t be solved. If most Americans actually put in some effort we could adopt these plans, but that’s not going to happen.
@@AwoudeX the usa road design and quality just screams lazyness to me
This seems like a whole lot of fun to be able to cycle without having to continuously stop. Honestly, thanks for bringing this to people's attention.
That San Francisco bicycle protest is next level. That is just about the best protest I've ever seen.
I love it when UA-cam suggests random city lifestyle video's. I've just binge-watched most of your video's already. You have a great voice, and good quality video's.
It's also great to see my own country through someone else's eyes. Gives me renewed enthusiasm for what could be considered the mundane.
As for this video, I cycle to Utrecht several times a week, and I just now marvelled for the first time at how easy it is for me. To get from my home to the city centre there are no stop signs and three traffic lights (with one 'rechtsaf vrij') on half an hour by bike.
The ability to go long distances without ever stopping is incredible. It was something I never really appreciated until I started living here and experiencing it myself. I now try to "game" my routes to see if, with minor changes, I can avoid all traffic lights. It almost always works!
@@NotJustBikes it does become a sport having as little traffic lights as possible...
Keeps the navigating fun, though
It's really impressive how the actual experience seems so seamless, that an average person won't even notice it. Yet for that it is so meticulously planned and designed!
just to be clear about the stop sign traffic light thing in Belgium. The stop sign is there in case the light doesn't work and the traffic can't function correctly. So normally the stop sign doesn't matter.
You know what would really make things safer? Not treating driver's licenses like free candy and giving them to people who are incapable of driving safely.
Very true
I agree, but you can only do that if there is a viable alternative
@@_CriminalArt_ That's the biggest problem, we designed cities so it's impossible to do anything without a car, then surprise, we have to significant lower the requirements to drive a car or people are stranded :(
@@Nota-Skaven In cities, it's much easier to do things without a car. Many people don't even own them, because there's tons of public transportation and things you can walk to. My wife didn't own a car when she lived in new york city.
@@Andrew-it7fb New York City, you mean the city famous for being a rare occasion of actually having good transit in North America?
The east coast in general suffers far less from car dependency, with NYC being the most famous specifically because it sadly is not the norm (and of course the cities population size, which is likely linked)
0:22 It's clear why Canada has Stop signs: they're not to keep cyclists safe, they're for pedestrians trying to cross the intersection. If a car actually stops at a sign they have a better perspective and increased time to view pedestrians that might be trying to cross from the driver's right-to-left and vice-versa. Problem is most drivers just glide past the sign only looking out to the roadway to see if any oncoming traffic is approaching before turning right. I've seen so many close calls with people walking in this scenario and especially at night. I think a speed bump would be a good start. It's not just about bikes.
Maybe, but as a Canadian I can tell you Stop signs are excesivly used for the purpose to be used as a tool to slow down traffic and to give out driving infractions. The city will deliberatly put stops signs in very ineficient places knowing fullwell that people do not come to complete stops and the police at the end of the month hide and do full scale operations to hand out many $300+ tickets to both driver and cyclists.
Yep, I'm. Big believer in stop-bumps. Too many people roll right through
It isn't just about stop signs, but the overuse of stop signs and bad street design that lead to the problems we have in America. Clearly, they don't have the same problems in many stopsign-less, north European countries.
That's why he doesn't advocate for simply removing the stop signs, but for redesigning streets before they're gone altogether.
Bro, i think the purpose of the video flew right over your head. Canada and USA, face it has the worst urban planning out there relative to being a "1st world country". And I think your suggestion of adding a speedbump is exactly proof why roads out there are bad.
@@Muchacho2DMax Huh? Did you watch the video? Part of it was how things like bumps are used to make sure drivers slow down, thus eliminating the need for stop signs.
the junction at 1:23 and 4:50 is in my hometown in Diemen (right next to amsterdam). When i was younger i was biking from the horse mange back down that road at 4:50 (the bike path in the front of the shot) with a friend of mine. there was a stop sign back then but no speed bumps and warning signs etc. there was a car on the right side of the road in the front of the shot at 4:50 who wanted to go right and we were stopping at the main road to cross it so we looked at the driver and he was like: go ahead (we were going straight on the same road so he had to give way) BUT there was a car coming on the main road from the left who we all didnt see except for me at the last second. My friend started biking (with the slow start as you mentioned) and while i screamed it was already to late and she got hit by the car coming on the main road. She flew and hit the pavement and started crying. she broke her leg and foot but got saved by her bike pedal wich took most of the hit so her leg was not totally hit. she was taken to the hospital and was fine eventually. after that they started to make the junction safer and added the bumps and zigzag lines etc. a lot of roads used to be more dangerous and after accidents they often change how junctions work. Tought this was worth sharing :)
Does said friend cycle today? In the UK the end of this story would be "and my friend has never cycled since. She now drives everywhere"
@@tomverseUK yes, i can't remember exactly, but she biked again and i reckon she started biking as soon as she could. I can see where you're coming from, but for young people here its just too much a part of normal life; going to school, going to friends, going to horseriding etc. So i think it doesn't even cross peoples minds that to stop using the bike is even a possibility, especially at a young age.
@@tomverseUK i think the trauma is more with crossing the street and being scared for cars then for being scared to bike. biking is like walking here, you wouldn't stop walking when you get hit by a car crossing the street as a pedestrian
@@bascep God, I need to move there. I wish my preference for the most efficient form of transport (the bike) didn't mark me out as a hobbyist here in Wales...
We have a relatively new junction in my city (Purmerend) that, since it's conception has seen a couple of accidents, with a very serious (almost fatal) one and local government failed to follow through.
The weird thing is: on every level the junction in particular ignores some of the core principals of junction design: A 30 kilometer road that has a cycle path crossing the road is basically always designed so that car users or any other motorised traffic need to yield to the cyclists.
This junction crosses a 30 kilometer road and car users have the right of way.
Junction design will usually try to steer clear of dangerous situations developing from the simple fact that a deviation in design might cause car users to be confused and stop whereas people behind them might not expect that and hit them.
Also, junction design will usually also take the level-surface (the "one big speed bump" explanation) design into account: in this case car users do not have to slow down because they hit a speed bump, but cyclists also don't experience one.
I think there is also a rule that should a cyclist be coming from some kind of downwards sloping cycle path towards a junction it's more convenient (and less dangerous) to give cyclists the right of way, but this rule or recommendation has also been ignored, you come racing down from a bridge and then have to come to a full stop because it's a busy junction where, next to the lack of clarity in how it's designed it's also common for people to ignore the speed limit of 30 kilometers an hour and drive 50.
For the dutch people: wie herinnert zich nog hrt fietsen examen van de basisscholen
Hoezo herinnert? Ik heb 2 jaar geleden nog een keer mee gedaan als examinator.
.
phoee jaa, ik weet nog dat ik die goed gekeurd sticker niet op me fiets had zitten haha
Wheelies doen wanneer de examinator 't niet kan zien :P
I'm not dutch, but I did do a cycling proficiency exam in primary school, I passed. I am actually very grateful that I did this because now I live in the Netherlands and my fiets is my main method of transport. I am so happy that it is relatively safe to cycle here as I loved to cycle as a kid.
ik had m nooit gehaald omdat ik op een plein fietste, vervolgens kwam ik in groep 8 op een andere basisschool en zei ik dat ik m nooit gehaald had. zei de leraar: wil je ook een fietsdiploma dan? ik was echt geschokkeerd dat zo'n diploma dus eigenlijk niks betekent en niks voorstelt
Here the infrastructure is designed to be as save as possible.
In countries like Canada and the USA, they don't develop the roads to make them saver. They stay with what they always did.
In the Netherlands they try to make it do no accidents happen. This is impossible, but the goal is to get it to 0.
That means that even as a road isn't that old and it is dangerous. It will be changed. Also each new road gets the latest developments that makes it saver and old roads get updated if needed.
Even the quality of the road is kept up to date to keep it save. That is shy the roads here look way better than in almost any other country.
Yup, that's why we also pay pretty high taxes. Whenever I'm in another country I can thankfully really see were all the taxmoney goes towards and it's well worth it! It's a little bit harder to see when you don't get to travel. Thankfully there are also videos like these for those that don't.
@@warffxfreak taxes are high, but overall we are way cheaper.
And yes we get a lot back for it what you see as soon as you go to an other country.
@@emiel1976ep wouldn't agree with the thing that we are way cheaper... Taxes going as high as 53% and 21% on most of the products. Also we have mandatory insurances.
@@l.l.6407 No you look ad taxes only, but take the USA. They pay less taxes but medical costs are way higher. As they get sick, they pay way more than we do. Also do they pay things like taxes but are called different. As the end, they pay more.
Other countries in the EU pay lower taxes, but also get a lot less back for it.
Only Greece is different. There you don't pay taxes and expect to get it for free. 😂😂
@@emiel1976ep they might pay more yeah, but therefore their income is averaged higher.
So it compensates, but I fully have to agree that medical costs are higher.
In the UK we generally don't bother with a STOP sign, unless it is absolutely necessary. We instead have a "Give Way" sign. Which means exactly what you'd think - you must yield the right-of-way. That's used at a lot of junctions - the STOP sign is only used when visibility is poor or something like that and you absolutely have to stop to have enough time for effective observations.
If you encounter a stop sign in the UK, it's there because "We tried Give Way (yeild) and accidents proved it wasn't sufficient." You find them only where visibility is completely atrocious.
In Groningen we have big intersections where all 4 cycling lanes go green at the same time. You should experience them in the morning rush hour :)
The only time I was in Groningen was during a school holiday time and I only got to see about four or five cyclists at a time in these intersections. I'll have to go back some time, but I don't know when!
It's basically a free for all, it's chaos but it works
@@NotJustBikes Are you an American permanently living in the Netherlands? :)
I was thinking about those intersections in Groningen too. Very crowded, dozens of people crossing at the same time. But it never goes wrong, although I try to avoid those intersections at the start of a new college year with tons of new international students.
They tried it in Rotterdam as well. Total failure..
@@ABC-ABC1234 if you watched his other videos you'd know he is a Canadian. And lived in other various other places, from Toronto to San Francisco and London to Brussels. Finally ending up in Amsterdam. Where will he finally end up is another thing.
Everyone: I live in the netherlands and its so weird to think that other places have stop signs.
Me: you guys dont have stop signs?!
The Belgian stop signs on traffic lights 3:10 is to show priority in case the lights are malfunctioning.
Exactly. In all cases on the road there's the standard order of which instructions to follow. Instructions from people (police or traffic controllers) are always the highest authority, then electronic signals like traffic lights, then traffic signs, then the base rules. If a light is not working, follow the signs. If there are no signs, it's just a regular crossing now. Give way to the cars on the right, eye contact, negotiate, and you're on your way.
(Note: some countries have the rule: "a non-functioning stop light becomes a stop sign")
It's the same as in the Netherlands, but without the stop signs. Instead, yield signs are used (for some sides of the intersection). So that begs the question: why do they use stop singns in Belgium at traffic lights?
@@Christian-ox7qx A yield sign and a stop sign are exactly the same but a stop sign asks you exactly what it says, to STOP. A yield sign asks you to slow down OR stop if necessary. Did you ever study the signs...? Please don't spread misinformation to others and do your reseach before you make a claim on something.
@@Christian-ox7qx a semantic safety precaution, but otherwise our systems are identical.
Not only if they are malfunctioning.
Here in Germany we have a lot of traffic lights that are turned off at night.
I hate stop signs when I’m driving in the states. But having been pulled over by the cops once for not coming to the total stop at a stop sign, now i always do, even if it seems ridiculous. It’s great to be back in Europe away from the land of stop signs!
Is noone going to talk about that one guy in Paris who keeps stealing their only stop sign? He must have a sick collection by now
3:10 In Belgium, stop signs at traffic lights are only used when the traffic lights are disabled at the junction. They are only present on dangerous junctions with multiple prioritary roads. In fact, those are rarely used because most junction got traffic lights with a yield sign instead.
3:08 the STOP sign is there for when the traffic signals lose power for some reason. The STOP sign is a backup sign.
03:26
For anyone wondering, this is how priority works if there are no signs or road marks.
1. Going straight has priority over someone across from you (i.e. on the same road) making a turn
2. Making a right hand turn has priority over someone across from you making a left hand turn
3. Traffic on the road to your right has priority over you
Imagine a 4-way crossing.
Car A on the left is turning left
Car B on the bottom goes straight
Car C on the right is turning right
(so all cars are going up)
In this case, priority should be C, B, A.
What if the up/down road is a priority road?
Well then both Car A and Car C would have sharks teeth and should give priority to the perpendicular road.
Changing priority in; B, C, A
Who would of thought to STOP and look both ways before you cross the street ??
I grew up in England but moved to the US. Having grown up with roundabouts I view the 4 way stop intersection to be just about the most childish way to build an intersection. But I think even 8 year olds would be able to figure out a better solution.
The few roundabouts I have seen in the US all have the wrong right of way rules and are thus even more absurd.
I have concluded that 4 way stops are so popular because Americans just love stupid rules and it creates a great revenue source by sending out police to ticket people.
In my neighborhood there is even a stop sign on a road without an intersection. There had been an intersection but during reconstruction one road was closed. But they left the stop sign where the intersection had been.
Mini roundabouts as used in the UK should replace all 4 way stops. The main problem is that in the US, the concept of public service announcements on TV is not understood so there is no effective way of communicating changes to the population efficiently.
Man, as an American, those last few seconds filled me with so much longing for a less car-centric world i nearly had tears in my eyes
You mean this? ua-cam.com/video/xSGx3HSjKDo/v-deo.html
Most sensible: The Idaho stop law is the common name for a law that allows cyclists to treat a stop sign as a yield sign, and a red light as a stop sign
Most sensible: no just get rid of stop signs lol
I love how you can see all those cyclists stop on the intersection while they're waiting for all the traffic on their right side to pass. It looks chaotic but it's so natural and it doesn't require a whole lot of thinking either.
one of my pet theories is that one of the reasons stop signs go over less well in europe because almost all cars are manual transmission and it's more of an annoyance to bring them out of a complete stop
lmao thats not true at all
@@UniversalKutub oh well
@@UniversalKutub it kinda is, im a new driver, and i started treating stop signs as yield signs because rolling through in slow 2nd is much nicer than stopping and starting from 1st.
Where I live in Texas literally everyone stops at stop signs. Even if there isn't a soul in sight, people still stop at them like a ritual and they respect it.
I can't believe how people just drive through them in this video.
I lived my whole life in Russia and last 4 years I am studying in Rotterdam (and plan to stay). And I am now used to so many things in the Netherlands, that when I watch these videos it really strikes me
Meanwhile, the town in Canada I just moved away from has spent the last several years slowly replacing every single intersection with 4-way stops in the name of "safety."
near where I live (in a cyclist friendly town in Germany), there is a junction where a street crosses a mayor bike path.
It used to be, that the bike path had stop signs, and the street had priority signs.
They probably counted vehicles, and came to the conclusion that this was stupid.
Now the bikes get priority and the few cars ever driving there have a stopsign.
The disadvantage on such crossings can be seen at another crossing near that:
during rush hour, it is nearly impossible to cross the cycling path as a car, due to kids cycling to school.
Well tell the kids to stop illegally driving cars then!!!
@@BlownMacTruck :D
I almost failed my first driving exam in The Netherlands back in 1999 for not completely stopping at a stop sign. It was only because the examiner noticed I was nervous yet did everything else during that ride by the book that he let me pass. I never even noticed the stop sign and I never really lost my blindspot for them.
Dont forget our driving exam (theory And practical part) And much longer And advanced compared to america.
And we have to be 18 (or in Some cases 17 with an experienced driver next to you) which gives you more experience in The road (by bike)
In the UK it's very similar, stop signs are extremely rare. I drive a Tesla and recently it got this update to detect stop signs, I had to have a long hard think about where the nearest one might be; Turns out it was 15 miles away, past the 5 roundabouts and no traffic lights. It was only there because there's buildings right up to the road edge so it's not possible to check if the road is clear without fully stopping.
Most US stop signs seem like they should be a yield/give way sign but they accidentally put up the wrong sign. I guess if they changed that now people would just fly through the yield signs and crash so it's a tough one to fix, can't fix stupid!
2:30 "Heh, that guy looks like a Nazi."
2:33 "Oh he _is_ a Nazi?"
I thought exactly the same thing when I first found the photo! 😁
The uniform is Dutch police, so he's not a Nazi-Nazi as in German occupiers. *Probably* not, I should say, as the role of the Dutch police forces in WW2, especially in Amsterdam, has been rather... *questionable* at the very least.
At first I thought it looked a bit like mr H himself. But on closer examination I figured it out ;-) He was also never actually in the Netherlands in that period.
I think the UK has got the balance about right for stop signs. There aren't many, and they tend to be in sensible places.
There tends to be way more give way signs than stop signs.
yeah the only ones ive seen was one in a pokey village and another right near a driving test centre which i think it was only kept there for driving tests haha
After living 4 years in the US and soon moving back to Europe, driving infrastructure here is one of the things I'll miss the least. Strodes, stop signs, 4+ lane highways. For a country so dependent on cars you'd think they'd value car infrastructure more.
The "stop sign traffic sign thing" means that when the light doesn't work, the sign takes it place, which is good for such big intersections.
The other day I watched someone stop at a yield sign for nothing and then proceed to ignore a stop sign
The stop signs under traffic lights are actually common across Belgium, not just in Brussels. And they're just a fallback in case the light fails (or is turned of at night).
I know in the US there are a few intersections with both Stop Signs and Traffic Lights; but I never knew what they where for. In some cities, they just switch the Traffic Lights to the 'Flashing' mode at night (or whenever the traffic density is low enough to do so) so the intersection functions as a 2 way stop (assuming it's a 4 way intersection); giving the higher priority roads flashing yellow for yielding, and the others flashing red for stopping.
In London, tiny "circles" are used at some intersections that would be four way stops in the US. Drivers would look left and roll through. But I found it harder as a pedestrian. Neither cars nor bikes (mostly scooters) were interested in stopping to let pedestrians cross.
Having the road raised at junctions is also useful for pedestrians pushing prams or people using wheelchairs, who then don't have to negotiate high kerbs.
*curbs*
@@carultch If you prefer.
In the UK stop signs are used incredibly rarely and each one needs a specific piece of legislation before it can be placed. We're not very cycle friendly at all, but at least we got that right. Our roundabouts are dangerous for cyclists though - they habitually remove them in cities and replace them with lights to improve safety. Hopefully we will get some more of the Dutch design ones soon.
My town in Colorado replaced a lot of stop signs with yield, or nothing at all. It works well.
In places where it snows, you can't depend on only surface markings.
Leave it to Not Just Bikes to be the only public figure who does not confuse the terms "less" and "fewer" - thank you from the bottom of my heart.
tell the world: you can't have progress, if you must stop all the time :)
I was queued up for ages at a junction (in Canada) the other day, thinking that 4 way stops have to be the slowest way of controlling traffic that has ever been invented!!!
north american traffic infra is weird to me as an aussie; why dont you peeps just use roundabouts?
@@hekkamomo I totally agree. Roundabouts are much more efficient.
A stop sign is saying "We designed this intersection so badly it can only be made safe by coming to a complete stop.".
4:13 (and 5:31) wow that part of the video is really amazing - so many cyclists and cars driving and crossing each others way and literally no one seems unsafe or is even crashing. This is so awesome!
This makes me think about some rural, large roads in Italy, with ridiculously low speed limits: forcing people to go that slow (50 km/h) on streets where it feels right to go faster (70 km/h as a minimum, 90 km/h still wouldn't hurt anyone) _does not_ make it safer, because people will feel the need to check the speedometer every minute at the expense of paying attention to the road, which includes other cars and at times some wild animals.
I think it's also important to notice that most bikers in the Netherlands are also cardrivers and the other way around. So you understand eachother. Thank you for your video!
Bikers? People on a motorcycle or bicycle?
@@iaintdonknow Op de fiets.
@@iaintdonknow cyclists
@@bbwblk thanks
@@iaintdonknow you're welcome.
What confused me the most while living in South Africa compared to Europe in regards to traffic has always been stop signs.
You'd often get a stop sign for the traffic going straight at a T junction, made absolutely no sense as you'd always see a car managing to get there, a yield sign would make more sense.
Same thing when there was a circle, about 10m of lane, a four way stop, 3m of lane, another four way stop, about 5m, a circle, about 5m of road, and then a traffic light (robot for those South African). Not a single person treated it as a stop sign, always a yield sign. It basically means that you can never swap to yield signs as people got conditioned that yield signs mean you always have right of way rather than that they mean a 4 way yield is whoever arrives first may go first.
Truth hey. As a south african I agree, we always treat stops as yields, which work really well for us, or so we think. The idea of stopping at a stop if you are the only one there or going to be the first to arrive is foreign to me. So too is the european habit of obeying pedestrian traffic lights and only using crosswalks. If there is no car, why should I wait for the magical green light to say it is safe if i know that there are no cars? Cars here love skipping pedestrian traffic lights (and our mini bus taxi's do not acknowledge any form of road signage) , which keeps life interesting.
Our urban planning makes no sense though, but we are sadly car-bound due to safety as we have extremely high crime rates.
@@heinoobermeyer7566 "Our urban planning makes no sense though"
For Cape Town, you have a giant mountain and a failure of a railway system and people constantly destroying stuff, resulting in a car requirement (though Atlantic seaboard has a pretty good bus system). Sprawl exists for everything built post 2000 or so (looking at Durbanville etc.)
For Johannesburg you have it similar to the US with the urban sprawl, you basically need a car.
It's just extremely strange considering a majority in South Africa cannot afford a road, townships actually have better routes within them than suburbia does (though I'd never want to be in one due to crime, space, etc.).
@@Masterrunescapeer The mountain is very good for navigating though, I always know where I am lol. I really just wish we had safe, quality, public transport as it would help deal with the sprawl and gridlock. But the safety concerns would result in almost all such efforts being meaningless.
...it's especially nice when cycling because it makes it possible to take an entire trip without stopping...
This phrase is so beautiful that I got a little puddle in the corner of my eye.
Similarly, I noticed that when wearing motorbike gear, I rode far more recklessly by default, because I felt safer than I was. Without gear, I rode more cautiously and attentively by default, because I felt vulnerable. Paradoxically, I was a safer rider without safety gear on. Of course, this is trading 'likelihood of accident' for 'severity of accident', so it isn't a perfect analogy, but it rests on the same psychology as the removal of stop signs. If people feel vulnerable and responsible for their own safety, they are more careful. If they feel coddled by safety culture, they are less careful.
Bicyclists in the Netherlands are not bothered by traffic signs or traffic lights. for a Dutch bicyclist a red traffic light means "Go ahead. Cars will stop for you anyway." Orange means: "Go ahead. Cars will stop for you anyway." Green means: "Go ahead. Cars will stop for you for sure" It's all due to Dutch legislation where a drunk bicyclist, cycling on the wrong side of the road and running a red light is not at fault, because "that's what cyclists do and you as a driver should know and anticipate that."
UK Stop signs are rare, and only used on blind junctions, so they are unusual enough that they are meaningful and people stop, and they really need to
In Portland, Oregon, cyclists are allowed to treat stop signs as yields. It's very nice and takes noticibly less effort to get around areas where there is a stop sign every other block.
And then you get the folks who think "can treat stop sign as yield" means "automatic right of way I'll just blow past the line of six cars and weave around the guy already turning here", but they were doing it before the law changed as well.
There's some point of critical density. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and, whether it was official or not, nobody cared if cyclists or cars treated stop signs as yield and stoplights as signs as long as it wasn't rush hour. At the other side of the critical point there's an intersection near where I live (SE 26th and Steele for folks who know Portland) where some weirdness about major streets becoming less major and off-highway traffic spreading into the area means you can at times get a whole bunch of folks coming from any direction trying to go any direction and a stop sign feels necessary, even at lighter-traffic parts of the day you have no idea what speed mindset people are hitting the intersection with and a 4-way stop really helps. Then in between there's all the side roads and smaller neighborhoods where the signs basically just mark which road has the right of way if someone happens to be coming by at the same time, and yield there makes sense.
The only time stop signs annoy me as an American driver is when they're in parking lots. I'm already going under 10mph I think I'll be fine with a simple yield. Also, the mindset one SHOULD have at a stop sign isn't "I've stopped, so I can go now." rather "I've stopped, carefully checked my surroundings for other motorists/pedestrians/cyclists and have determined that it is now safe for me to continue." People that just roll through every stop sign they encounter are the problem. Not the stop sign itself. People are the problem in America. No one gives a shit here. People get out of Drivers Ed and go "well, I'm never going to use any of what I just learned ever again". I guarantee if you took a bunch of American drivers and stuck them in the middle of one these European cities (even if you educated them on how the roads work there first) there would be a massive uptick in accidents because they would simply refuse to comply.
@Tonto that because in America any person can train any other person to drive. which can transfer bad habits to the new driver and go take their road and it is very cheap. in england and I believe and in Europe only licensed professional can train you and it cost a few thousand dollars to get your license. So ppl take it more seriously.
they dont give a shit about stop signs BECAUSE they're used EVERYWHERE lol. it just becomes something you tune out
Fun fact (although it may be different in your state), stop signs in parking lots are not actually legal traffic control devices so you can't be ticketed for them, and don't technically _have to_ obey them.
The exception however, is for stop signs at the egress before you turn onto the road, that one is controlling road traffic, therefore legal.
I honestly think we need an entire upheaval of our driving education, culture and infrastructure before we're even close to being ready to get rid of stop signs in North America.
There is no intrinsic difference between Americans and Europeans. I don’t understand how you could leave a video with the impression that it was anything other than road design. I mean he specifically said drivers that aren’t paying attention or listening to rules will be slowed down by the design of the road.
I work as a delivery driver in the Southeast USA. Part of our work protocol is following safety standards on the road, which is normal and good. We should. And the people that I work for have measures in place to monitor all of the drivers in their fleet to ensure that the safety standards are followed. I have opinions on that but they aren't relative here. However, they track our driving not only with cameras on our windshield, which are bulky and add an extra blindspot, but also by tapping into the delivery trucks onboard computer. The result of this means that all of our drivers are paranoid to high heaven because we can and will be fired if our safety metrics aren't high enough. Safety protocol should be followed, the metrics should read high, I'm in agreement with that. After all, it's my life on the line. But for my company, the metrics have become their god almost, and because our drivers are so paranoid now we become less safe. The cameras and the computers track the speed of the truck and the speed limit signs so precisely that if we pass the sign going too fast, regardless of traffic around us or how visible the sign is, we will get a mark. Most of our drivers will drive under the speed limit just so they can keep their job, which, inside of the high speed arenas we have to drive in, is just as unsafe if not more so than going too fast. The cameras are watching the traffic lights and will notate a mark against us if we yield a right turn at a red light. Purely because the rulebook states you have to come to a complete stop whether you yield or not. It doesn't matter how badly such an action blocks the traffic behind the truck, or how fast traffic is moving behind you, in order to yield we have to stop first. And the reason for this comment being under this video is because if stop signs. I could not agree more with this attitude toward stop signs. I was beginning to think I was one of the only ones to feel this way about them. Given how many T-intersections in our roads, blind spots in our vehicles, and the incredibly high speeds that we are often expected to merge into; I can actually see where a few of our stop signs are actually safer, but the vast majority of them are pointless, useless and waste valuable time. And time is money in my job, quite literally. Because ironically we are paid more in bonuses the faster we are. There are so many stop signs that only serve to block traffic rather than regulate it. I'm looking specifically at you neighborhoods and suburbia. If I may, I think it helpful to think of traffic and traffic safety in terms of anatomy. Traffic is the life blood of a town or city and anything that obstructs it's flow is a clog. Too many of those and you end with heart failure. I really wish my bosses understood this so that I could actually drive safely, because the way they make me drive now is much more unsafe. Since when did rules and metrics become more important than human life? Sigh...
Thank you for giving voice to many concerns that I've had for years. I love the work that your doing and I hope that the knowledge your sharing will one day become the standard for all road users. Thank you
1:23 yikes, here where I live in rural area in finland we do not know the consept of stopping a bicycle.
Unless there is car right there on the road at that exact moment
Strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words.
Seriously, Canada can learn so much about building better neighborhoods
2:41 I'm shocked to see so many cars ignore that stop sign, usually in the NL they are placed with a good reason.
Yes, I came to the comments to see what people made of that. Why is there yield signs in the road and a stop sign on the post? They contradict each other.
And about the stop signs under a traffic light, here in sweden we have those signs in case the traffic light is broken, then you revert to the signs. Some have stop signs while others have yield signs and if one of the roads is a major road it usually has a "main route" sign. (I have no idea what those are called in english)
And how to recognize if a car driver has been in the Netherlands:
Looks over his right should before every right turn.
Also: I able to spot bicyclist without light in the dark, in the rain, crossing an intersection from the wrong way.
so... basically his or her head is continuously spinning
Except didn't grow up in the Netherlands and did the same thing, proper city driving where everything isn't suburbia (as in you have lots of pedestrians running around the place that often don't follow the rules).
I've probably been in more car accidents and witnessed more car accidents than most in first world countries, I make it a point to have car insurance change the question from "How many accidents have you been in?" to "How many while I was driving?", so four, of which none yet have been my fault.
(This all in South Africa, never been in an accident in Europe/US; one case of car is stopped in traffic, taxi took out my left side, one case of taxi taking out my mirror, another with trolley man going on a 4 lane highway at night on a mountain side (Google Groote Schuur and check the highway intersection to the south), and then another of a truck jack knifing on a highway, that last one was probably one of the scariest moments of my life as there's nothing you can do as you know you won't be able to break in time but you're hoping you're going to slow down enough and that the car's crumple zone will be good enough, think I hit at 40kmph, down from 120, I was fine, person left to me got rushed to hospital, car write off).
As someone who exclusively drives a car with a manual transmission, stop signs are the bane of my existence and my clutch’s.
I live in the Dominican Republic where stop signs are a thing but not respected by drivers. The natural fluidity seemed so chaotic when I moved here. Now, it's so normal I cannot stand going back to the US!
The ending clip is so peaceful, it seams like a big street yet it's so quiet!
Still chaotic.
I'm learning a lot about my own country here, thanks
just getting American's for learn and apply "right of way" would solve so many issues with traffic of all sorts!
Good luck. They'll just complain about infringement of their free-dumb.
Americans use "right of way" as a weapon.
Wait you don't yield to the person on your right when there's no signs at an intersection? How do you handle it then, seems like such a basic thing to me I didn't even think there could be some place that didn't use that :D
I learned right of way but the problem is....no matter if others have the right of way or not, they will take it. Courtesy has gone out the window in America. We treat each other like dirt and especially when we're in our cars.
@@matousfiala5925 Whoever gets there first is the actual rule in America. 'Yield to the person on the left' is the backup I think? I could be wrong, it rarely comes up. Usually both people stop and then sort of play chicken with who can wait longest.
The stop sign is merely a formality insisted upon by lawyers.
The street in front of our small, local university was 4-lane w/ a center island that made it feel like a 5-lane. Was 25 MPH, but people flew down it. ... City changed that to 2 automobile lanes & 2 bike lanes. That simple change in lane markings dramatically slowed traffic.