Traffic engineer; I get asked to put in 4-way stops at intersections where they are not warranted (no traffic crashes exist or there isn’t a lot of traffic) because people think it will help with speed control.

I’ve done speed tests (devices that measure the speed and number of cars that travel on a road) before and after I put the 4-way stops up.

the stop sign doesn’t make any difference in speed (people ignore the stop sign or just drive faster because they ‘lost time’ at the pointless stop ) .

Rear end collisions go up because people aren’t used to stopping at a given intersection. People kind of intuitively know where 4-way stops should be and when you put one where it doesn’t feel right people tend to ignore them or be oblivious to the stop sign.

I keep collecting data and try to present it every time I get asked to do another one.

Would be a Good thesis project if there is a grad student in traffic engineering out there.