San Francisco Bikers Score a Point for the Idaho Stop

"Hundreds of cyclists rode through The Wiggle [July 29] in protest of a San Francisco police captain's calls for a crackdown on bikers coasting through stop signs," reports Kevin Montgomery. "But instead of breaking the law, protesters wanted to show the city just how bad traffic would be if every bicycle approached intersections just as a car does."

"Riders arrived at every stop sign in a single file, coming to a complete stop and filing through the intersection only once they were given the right-of-way. The law-abiding act of civil disobedience snarled traffic almost immediately," adds Montgomery.

The riders undertook the protest to raise the idea of legalizing the "Idaho Stop," which, legal in a few places around the country, allows bikers to treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs. The protest also called attention to remarks made by SFPD Park Station Captain John Sanford, who recently ordered his officers to step-up enforcement of biking scofflaws.