What the law says: California Vehicle Code Section 22450(a) requires a vehicle in an intersection marked by a stop sign to stop either at the white line crossing the lane - known as the "limit line" - or at the crosswalk at the near edge of the intersection. If there is no limit line or crosswalk, the vehicle must stop at the entrance to the intersection.

The rest of the story: Under California law, bicyclists have the same responsibilities and rights as motorists, including the responsibility to obey the laws that govern when and where vehicles must stop. State law is unambiguous: if there's a stop sign, you must stop at it.

This may not seem to make practical sense in the situation you describe, since there is no traffic crossing your path of travel. But consider the hazards of not stopping.

You could startle a driver who enters the intersection expecting everyone else to stop - that startled driver's response could cause a collision. You're vulnerable to a driver who swings wide while turning left from the intersecting road, makes a U-turn from the lane facing you, or, like you, simply decides not to stop. You also risk hitting a pedestrian crossing the intersection.

In any of these scenarios you'd only have an instant to respond, a situation every bicyclist wants to avoid. That's the practical reason for stopping: it gives you time to choose when and how you want to proceed. (It also spares you from an expensive traffic citation for failing to stop.)

The takeaway: Obeying stop signs keeps you safe and helps protect others on the road. Bicyclists who ignore this and other basic rules of the road not only endanger themselves and others, but they make it hard for advocacy organizations like CBC to see that motorists are held accountable for unsafe and unlawful behavior. That further complicates efforts to defend the legal rights of bicyclists as equal users of the road.

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