If you've ever driven or biked in San Francisco (or I'm assuming any other marginally bike-friendly city) you'll quickly understand that for bicyclists, stop signs are yields and red lights are stop signs. You're just going to have to get used to that, at least on low-volume, low-speed streets.

That of course is not what the law says, and many people (especially drivers and people who don't like bicycles) will disagree. However, it's a cultural norm which, when ignored, leads to far more frustrating four-way encounters. e.g. "law-abiding" cyclist approaches stop sign at the same time a car on the right has already arrived. Car, expecting cyclist to enter intersection (because that's what every other cyclist does) waits. Other cars approach intersection. Cyclist, wanting to abide by the law, slows so that first car can proceed through the intersection. Car waits, expecting cyclist to go through. Other cars wait. Law-abiding cyclist comes to complete stop. Well-meaning (but wrong) car motions cyclist to proceed, ceding right of way. Other cars seethe. Precious seconds wasted.

Sometimes as a cyclist it's better to just run that stop sign and save everybody the hassle. As a cyclist in SF, that's what I do, if there isn't already a car stopped at the intersection and/or very clearly arriving there before me. If there's a car starting to cross in front of me, I go behind it. If I'm coming up behind a car who has the right away as they proceed into the intersection, I'm going to piggyback through the intersection with them rather than stopping myself. I feel I'm abiding the spirit of right-of-way if not the letter of the traffic laws.

Also I notice that most drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians don't understand right of way to begin with, to the point of making weird and dangerous decisions: drivers stopping midway through an intersection trying to be "nice" to some pedestrian or cyclist whose turn it might not be. Dont do it! Take right of way when you have it. Pedestrians doing the same to motion cars through intersections even as they are in the middle of a crosswalk. Ack!

And no the conserving momentum thing is not BS. It's inherent to that mode of transportation. Watch how cyclists navigate stop signs some time. Even when they're more or less obeying the law, very few are coming to a complete stop. Starting and stopping a bike takes much more physical effort than it does a car. Combine that with the vast differences in kinetic energy between them, and I am so much more sympathetic to the cyclist cruising through the stop sign than the car who does the same (and again, actually take note sometime -- cars are as bad about not stopping at stop signs as bikes are).

Finally, as a car owner and driver, to other drivers: get over yourselves! You don't need to be in such a hurry. So what if a pedestrian crosses your path or a bike cruises through a stop sign? You have thousands of pounds of heavy machinery at your command. Be happy about that, pat yourself on the back,etc. You've already got a lot to be pleased with. If you need to stop more quickly than you would have liked, all you have to do is press down on that lever on the floor and you're back up to speed. Life is too short to get your blood pressure up about this sort of stuff. And if it does really get to you, maybe you should gasp park it and go for a walk.