I’m from the UK where in general there’s only a stop sign if it’s needed, such as a junction where you can see absolutely nothing on one side. Otherwise usually there’s a give way line instead, to let people slow the car right down to look, but not need to stop if it’s unnecessary.
Whenever I see a video of an American street, it seems like there’s a stop sign everywhere I’d expect there to be a give way line. Surely this is inefficient as stopping and starting increases emissions, and stops the flow of traffic.
Is it really just the American government doesn’t expect drivers to look properly? Is it so the police can give people tickets for not quite stopping but still doing the junction completely safely?
Some areas are implementing roundabouts, but I think one problem with them is they require more space than a square intersection.
I think telling someone in Europe that we don’t implement roundabouts in the US because of space considerations might seem ridiculous to them.
Would have to deal with the four property owners on each quadrant of the intersection. Any one of them can stall the effort. This goes even worse in cities where buildings are likely close to the intersection. And yes, they should have built everything with roundabouts in mind in the first place. We focused on cars when we built everything but made poor choices which hinder future changes.
So that along with all the other red tape need to go through like environmental studies and such make each update to a roundabout somewhat daunting.