Do We Really Need Stop Signs?

You need to give up that puritanical prairie life and come to Pittsburgh. Not only will we teach you to say "yinz", but we'll show you that the only sane use for a stop sign is to provide a safety zone for pedestrians leaping out of the crosswalk as cars barrel through at 30 mph! Even cops run them.

You are absolutely correct, however you actually answer your own question with this statement "that a properly obeyed yield sign can't do" .

Enforcement is the only reason that anyone obeys any traffic signs and Stop signs are easy to enforce. Enforcement of yield signs is much more difficult and is in fact subjective as to speed and or distance to oncoming traffic etc.

Until our society is mature enough to obey signs without the inducement of fear of prosecution, stop signs will be a fact of life.

In China where I live there are no stop signs or yield signs. Everyone gives way to every direction and strangely enough the traffic flows quite effectively. Road rage is simply not apparent/allowed.

People stop at traffic lights only if cameras are fitted. In order to drive yourself you have to know which lights have cameras, because if you stop at a red light where there are no cameras installed you will without doubt get a car up you arse.

Terroristic enforcement of illogical laws is not nearly the only reason that one would obey a thoughtfully applied traffic control sign. Try enlightened self interest as the leading reason to obey them. As in it will cost you less time and money to obey them because, when properly used, they promote the smooth flow of traffic, which cuts down on crashes and injuries. If we could teach all of the drivers in the USA to be superlogical drivers we would need less than a third of the traffic control signs that we have now with none of them being stop signs!! A great byproduct would be the reduction in wear and tear on our vehicles, as well as less fuel being burned, and less travel time.

You were one of the citizens that voted those legislators in place. They put the officials in office that place the stop sign there. If you feel that the sign was improperly place address it with them. You and members of your community have the power to get it removed. Now you just have to get the members of the community to agree with you.

Good luck with that. The lack of initiative for members of a community to get involved is why the legislators get away with some the stuff they do.