Having ridden a bike on roads for 30 years, I can’t say I was always the most compliant cyclist when it came to traffic laws. Getting around the Brisbane suburbs on my old Wheeler hardtail would usually involve shortcutting down pedestrian-only stairs, sprinting through train station underpasses and every sort of urban cycling tomfoolery you’d expect from a bored, teenaged mountain biker who didn’t have trails near their house.
I’d occasionally witness more serious road cyclists weaving around traffic and track standing for minutes on end at red lights, but in a bike lane-free city, I was content just to keep myself alive while getting around. Of course, that meant pissing off more than a few motorists along the way.
Thankfully, traversing Whistler isn’t nearly as hazardous. Our fabled Valley Trail makes it so much safer to get around, but with cycling traffic picking up on busy summer days and e-bikes already going faster than they should, bikes of all kinds will spill onto the regular roadways and Highway 99.
Given Whistler has more or less grown up with mountain bikes, it’s not the kind of community where you’d expect to get ticketed for rolling through a stop sign on two wheels, despite it being illegal. But as someone who reads more than their fair share of cycling news, I recently found an interesting term that does its best to justify a bike rolling through red signs and signals. It’s called the “Idaho stop.”
The Idaho stop is the nickname for a “rolling stop” law passed in 1982 in its U.S. namesake state as part of an effort to reduce technical traffic infringements that were clogging up the courts. While seemingly late to the party, since 2017, a handful of other U.S. states have observed the benefits of the Idaho Stop and implemented their own version.
The law allows cyclists to treat red lights as stop signs and stop signs as yield signs, which, as someone who has been commuting by bike for a long time, makes perfect sense. Cyclists—and to a lesser extent, e-bikers—need momentum to make their chosen form of transport benefit them. Grumpy motorists will argue everyone using the roads should be treated the same, but in a town like Whistler where happy bikers outnumber grumpy motorists, we tend to get it. However, the Idaho stop is not the law in Canada. Every time you check both ways and roll on through, you are actually committing a traffic offence, so best make sure you are at least doing it right.
In a September 2022 article for Canadian Cycling Magazine titled “You’re probably doing the Idaho stop wrong,” writer Matt Hansen described the kind of cyclist behaviour that triggered a ticketing spree by police in Toronto’s High Park. “The idea is you treat the stop sign as a yield, however, it doesn’t mean you race right through it. It means that you should reduce your speed,” Hansen wrote. “The Idaho stop is not legal in Canada, despite there being a big push for it.” Ironically, the same month, cyclists shared images on Twitter of Toronto bike cops rolling right through stop signs themselves. I guess they didn’t want to lose their momentum.
Whether or not B.C. or Canada ever adopts the Idaho stop, cyclists are going to do it anyway, e-bike or no e-bike. What’s in our control is how we approach this common traffic obstacle. Let’s take a look at a few Whistler examples. If I’m riding my Class 1 e-bike on Lorimer Road towards the village and come to the intersection with Highway 99, I’ll stop at the red light like every other car. If the highway is busy as usual, I’ll wait for my green light. If it’s early in the morning and the next car on the highway is barely cresting the horizon, I’ll go ahead and cross the highway without waiting for the green signal. No harm, no foul.
Just down the hill is Whistler’s most notorious intersection, Lorimer Road and Northlands Boulevard. If I’m cycling straight through the intersection (in either direction) and staying on Lorimer, I’ll keep cruising. If the pedestrian light is flashing, I’ll slow down if it’s a couple of people, or I’ll stop if multiple groups (or say a family of six) are all crossing together.
If I need to cross Lorimer at this intersection, I’ll weigh the traffic conditions first. On a quiet Tuesday morning, I’ll approach the intersection like a vehicle and roll through with an Idaho stop with no problem. If it’s a hectic weekend with lots of motorists from out of town not knowing exactly where they’re going, I’ll play it safe by approaching from the sidewalk instead, coming to a full stop, and pressing the button for the pedestrian crossing signal. I’ll give those motorists on Lorimer Road a few seconds to react to the blinking lights before crossing. Way too many clueless e-bikers treat these pedestrian crossings as a right-of-way, switching between road and sidewalk and not giving motorists on Lorimer the crucial seconds they need to react.
There are other habits I’m getting into in order to make my e-bike commuting safer. If I’m travelling at all on the highway, I’ll turn on a flashing, wide-beam front light so motorists notice me from the front, even during the day. I’ll turn on the flashing red rear light for greater visibility from behind. Most of all, I’ll use my common sense. I ride defensively and don’t suddenly surprise the cars around me with an unexpected move.
If we all employ common-sense tactics like the Idaho stop, we’ll all get around safer in the summer.
Vince Shuley is a fan of common sense. For questions, comments or suggestions for The Outsider email [email protected] or Instagram @whis_vince.
