Bicycle Safety Stop Campaign

Make the Bicycle Safety Stop Legal

It’s time for California to join many other states and the NHTSA and recognize the value of stop-as-yield for bikes. It’s safe. It’s smart. It’s common sense.

WHAT’S AT STAKE

Bike Stop-as-Yield

Every day, thousands of bike riders across California slow as they approach stop signs. They look both ways. If there is traffic, they stop; if not, they roll safely through the intersection.

Right now, this is illegal under California law, but it shouldn’t be. That’s why CalBike and our allies continue to advocate for a change in the law allowing people on bikes to treat stop signs as yields in California. It’s high on our agenda for 2023.

Data from Delaware shows that collisions involving bikes at intersections went down by 23% after the state adopted the bicycle safety stop.

You might know the stop-as-yield as the Idaho stop because Idaho was the first state to legalize it, way back in 1982. It’s time for California to make the Bicycle Safety Stop legal, too. Sign the petition to tell Governor Newsom to legalize the safety stop.

OUR APPROACH

CalBike Video Explaining the Bicycle Stop as Yield Law

Thank you to Spencer Boomhower for the animation, originally created to promote the Idaho stop in Oregon.

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WHY IT MATTERS

4 Reasons to Support the Bicycle Safety Stop Bill:

Safety

Our streets are safer when everyone knows what to expect from each other. Legalizing the commonsense move of slowing and rolling through a stop sign on a bike reduces conflicts between bike riders and car drivers.

Uniformity

California’s neighboring states have adopted similar laws. The bicycle safety stop will help bike riders throughout the West know what to expect.

Respect

A minority of car drivers will use any excuse to stereotype people who ride bikes as outlaws. These anti-bike attitudes lead to harassment and threatening behavior on the streets and, in a few cases, to outright violence against bike riders. Legalizing the safety stop recognizes the rights of people on bikes to share the streets and affirms that they are riding responsibly when they practice the bicycle safety stop.

Equity

Like other minor infractions, failure to stop is disproportionately enforced against poor and BIPOC people. Removing the infraction takes away one tool of oppression.