BIKE: It's *always* dangerous to cruise Stop signs?

[Michael Bluejay]

Today while I was out running Stop signs I was thinking about Mike 
Dahmus' insistence that it is *never* safe to do so.  An idea occurred 
to me.  Assume an intersection with a four-way stop (use a monospaced 
font to view properly):

        |          |
        |          |
        |          |
-------            ---------
                     << CAR

-------            ---------
        |        ^ |
        |      BIKE|
        |          |

This is the scenario we've all been imagining.  The bike is heading 
north and the car is heading east at a four-way stop.

But now imagine that it's only a two-way stop, and only the east-west 
traffic has a stop sign.  The bike has no sign, it can keep going.

Now, we all expect that it's reasonably safe for the cyclist to cruise 
through the intersection without stopping because he has the right 
away.  Fair enough.  But if we put another Stop sign at the 
intersection, and we're to believe Mike Dahmus, then suddenly the whole 
universe has changed and now that once-safe intersection is magically 
very, very dangerous.  So much so that it's *impossible* for a cyclist 
to determine whether it's safe to proceed without coming to a full and 
complete stop.  Before the cyclist didn't even *need* to determine 
whether it was safe to proceed, but now that an extra sign has been 
planted in the ground, the cyclist not only would need to determine 
whether it was safe to proceed without stopping, he's completely unable 
to do so.  The Stop sign has magic powers and turns the whole world on 
its head.

So Mike, if it's *impossible* for me to determine whether it's safe to 
cruise through a four-way stop when the side traffic has a Stop sign, 
how exactly is it safe to cruise through a two-way stop without 
stopping when the side traffic has that same Stop sign?

-MBJ-
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