I have a hypothesis that most stop signs could be safely turned into de facto yield signs, and generate tremendous gains in time, energy, and money. I’m not advocating blowing through stop signs at 70 mph, I’m just saying if the intersection is clear at 10 mph, it will still be clear at 0 mph.
Time
Let’s say the average driver encounters 6 “yield-able” stop signs each day, and that each unnecessary stop costs drivers 5 seconds. Each day, that’s an extra 30 seconds of life we’ll never get back. It’s not a lot, but multiplied times 200 million drivers and say a 60 year lifetime of driving, as a society we’ll give up nearly 2.2 trillion days stopping at empty intersections by 2070.
I believe there is a better use for those 2.2 trillion days than wastefully obeying stop signs. I believe we could use them to find a cure for cancer, fight global poverty, and make earth a better place to live. Or play more Dr. Mario.
Energy
Kinetic energy is a function of the square of a car’s speed. So reducing a car’s speed from 20 mph to zero costs exponentially more kinetic energy than from 20 mph to 10 mph. In fact, in this example, it requires 4x the force. Similarly, the force required to re-accelerate after a complete stop is exponentially more than a driver would use had he safely coasted through.
Let’s return to our average driver and the 6 “yield-able” stop signs. Based on the physics of coasting through, drivers use roughly 1/4 the amount of fuel they would use compared to making a complete stop. And while these stops make up a relatively small portion of driving time and fuel economy, it adds up to millions of barrels of wasted gas across society and over time.
If the 6 stops/day add up to an eighth of a mile, it results in 45 miles of unnecessary stopping/starting per driver per year. I’ll make some fuel-economy estimates and say a full-stop strategy costs each driver about 4 gallons more than a coast-through strategy, resulting in 48 billion gallons of gas. Extra fuel burned also means more pollution.
Just as stopping at stop signs is costing us more time than we ever imagined, it is costing us dearly in terms of our limited oil resources and clean air. Chevron and Exxon are happy, as is OPEC. But everyone else?
Money
Those 48 billion gallons certainly have a huge economic cost, not to mention the cost of increased wear-and-tear on our brakes, and cost of police officers dutifully ticketing California stops.
Your Responsibility
It is amazing the gains we can achieve on the road without sacrificing safety.
The next time you get pulled over by an unenlightened cop for not being a responsible driver and obeying the stop sign, just say this:
“I’m sorry Officer. You see, I’m a pragmatist and an environmentalist, and coming to a complete stop would have been a terrible waste of resources; much like what you’re doing now, having pulled me over for a victimless crime. Now who’s being irresponsible?”
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Soooo, did you fall victim to another ticket?