Slowing down as you approach the stop sign, scanning the full 360 degrees around the intersection (which, unlike cars, cyclists are able to do easily and quickly), being prepared to stop if necessary, but continuing on through if there's no reason to do so, is perfectly safe.

For an experienced, physically fit cyclist, riding in good conditions? Perhaps.

For a younger and less experienced cyclist, with less strength, riding in a noisy area while it's raining? Not so much.

There is always a danger in discussions about road traffic laws of assuming -- consciously or otherwise -- ideal conditions and skillful drivers/riders. However, those people were much less likely to have an accident already.

I'd make the analogy thusly: as a cyclist coming to a stop sign, I've got to come to a stop, dismount, remount, then get going again from a standstill.

What kind of bike are you riding if you have to dismount every time you stop?!

Maybe it's a national or cultural thing, but to me (based in cycle-filled Cambridge, UK) that idea is crazy and any bike where it was true would be very bad for riding on the road.

There is certainly a real problem with road design that causes stop-start behaviour for cyclists. We most often see this here when looking at shared use cycle paths along pavements (sidewalks) set back from the road: it's an idea that sounds cycle-friendly, but in reality those paths don't have priority at junctions with side roads while the main road does, meaning for any cyclist competent and confident enough to ride at closer to normal traffic speeds, the shared use paths are not a useful alternative to on-road cycling.

However, I think this article is far too quick to gloss over legitimate concerns about whether cyclists really can judge when it's safe to traverse a junction against a red light or stop line. Again, it's possible that the uses for these tools are different here in the UK -- we use stop lines quite rarely for example, often precisely because a junction doesn't give a sufficient view on approach to enter it without stopping to check first. But I see examples almost daily of cyclists running red lights and in doing so causing disruption to pedestrians and other road users who were trying to cross the junction properly. And yes, tragically, sometimes cyclists do get seriously injured or killed doing so.

I also think the article was too quick to gloss over the argument that on the same road, the same rules should apply to everyone. Of course it can't literally be true in cases like road space reserved for certain classes of traffic. However, I would argue that creating a "them and us" culture between cyclists and motor traffic is dangerous, because in reality, breeding resentment for cyclists who ride as if they own the road does make a significant number of motor vehicle drivers more aggressive toward them. I think the roads are safer places when road users respect each other and act courteously -- when people voluntarily give way (yield) to help someone else make progress, slow down and give more space around vulnerable road users, and so on. If you lose that culture, then however in the right a cyclist might be legally, they're still going to be the one who ends up in hospital or worse if their riding antagonises people driving several tonnes of fast-moving metal who then get frustrated and make a mistake or simply don't yield when a cyclist expected them to as a courtesy but the law doesn't actually require it.

None of this is to say that current laws are ideal or we shouldn't change them if the data warrants it. I strongly believe that road safety policy should be evidence-based. I'm just not sure this article has made that case, at least not in a way that would apply on the roads around here.