Exclude stop field for stop signs in Bulgaria

[Dimitar5555]

Description, Motivation & Context

All stop signs in Bulgaria are stop=minor. The literal meaning of the stop sign according to local law is "Stop! Give way to the priority road" so "all ways stop" should be an impossible situation.

Related issues

none

Links and data

Relevant OSM Wiki links:
n/a

Relevant tag usage stats:
There were 14 uses in Bulgaria of which 11 tagged as minor (some of them being on residential crossroads, go figure which one is "minor"), 1 incorrectly tagged as all and 1 of each forward and backward. The highest usage was around 35 uses in Jan 2022.

https://taginfo.geofabrik.de/europe:bulgaria/keys/stop

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[1ec5]

As far as I know, there isn’t a default implied value of stop=* globally. It isn’t the case that a missing stop=* necessarily means stop=all, especially since highway=stop can be tagged at the stopline rather than the intersection node. In fact, existing routers don’t differentiate local legal expectations when applying penalties for highway=stop. Are you sure stop signs should not be tagged stop=minor under any circumstance? Or would it be reasonable to define a Bulgaria-specific preset that automatically applies stop=minor without providing a field to change it to stop=all?

[Dimitar5555]

From what I've seen stop signs are rarely mapped at the intersection node. Does this field make sense when the sign is not at the intersection?

Are you sure stop signs should not be tagged stop=minor under any circumstance?

Legally there shouldn't be such cases. In practice officials don't always follow the law and they might create stop=all junction...

[Dimitar5555]

Sidebar screenshot:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/7899835401

[1ec5]

From what I've seen stop signs are rarely mapped at the intersection node. Does this field make sense when the sign is not at the intersection?

The documented tagging scheme is counterintuitive: effectively, an all-way stop should be tagged as stop=all on the intersection node, but a two-way stop should be tagged as stop=minor on each stopline. Implicitly, a data consumer can infer that any intersection node is stop=all and any other node is stop=minor, unless otherwise specified. This appears to be how routers are treating the key, though renderers may be doing something different. (Regardless of the documentation, some mappers are mapping all stop signs at the stoplines for consistency.)

Legally there shouldn't be such cases. In practice officials don't always follow the law and they might create stop=all junction...

That sounds similar to the situation with highway=give_way in some jurisdictions. What does it even mean for everyone to give way to everyone else? 😵‍💫

[Dimitar5555]

I've looked up the local legislation again. It turns out that placing stop signs is allowed in very few cases. Namely, when there is limited visibility and/or in junctions with high concentration of traffic accidents. Even then, the name of the sign remains "Stop! Give way to traffic on the priority road!".

The only 2 mentions of stop signs in the road design ordinance

https://lex.bg/bg/laws/ldoc/2137187173

REGULATION No. RD-02-20-2 OF 28 AUGUST 2018 ON ROAD DESIGN
Effective as of 26.10.2018
Issued by the Minister of Regional Development and Public Works

Published State Gazette No. 79 of 25 September 2018, amended State Gazette No. 90 of October 30, 2018, amended State Gazette No. 38 of April 24, 2020, amended and supplemented State Gazette No. 33 of April 12, 2024

---

Art. 113. (1) The field of visibility shall be determined by the distance of visibility in the secondary direction in accordance with Figure 42a and Figure 42b.

...

(10) At intersections where visibility cannot be ensured by the traffic organization design, a B2 "Stop! Give way to traffic on the priority road!" sign and an M6 "Stop line" sign shall be installed.

---

Art. 128. (1) A "roundabout" may be defined as (legal definition).

...

(3) The design of new roundabouts and major repairs to existing intersections shall be carried out under the following conditions:

...

4. in the event of a concentration of traffic accidents at intersections on Class III roads and local roads, where the placement of signs B2 "Stop! Give way to traffic on the priority road!" ("Stop" sign) or B1 "Give way to traffic on the priority road" ("Give way" sign) does not improve the situation;

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

The closest thing to "all way stop" is "junction of roads of equal importance" but it's definition tactically avoids all way stops.

Details

https://www.mrrb.bg/bg/naredba-rd-02-21-1-ot-23-11-2023-g-za-signalizaciya-na-putistata-s-putni-znaci/

Regulation No. RD-02-21-1 of November 23, 2023, on road signage with traffic signs
(State Gazette No. 101 of December 5, 2023, effective August 5, 2024)

Art. 40. Road sign A25 "Intersection of equal roads" warns of an approaching intersection outside the boundaries of a populated area where there is no signaled right of way.

[1ec5]

All stop signs in Bulgaria are stop=minor.

Should be a separate highway=stop preset for Bulgaria (and maybe other countries?) that automatically adds stop=minor?

Art. 40. Road sign A25 "Intersection of equal roads" warns of an approaching intersection outside the boundaries of a populated area where there is no signaled right of way.

That sounds identical to the established definition of junction=uncontrolled, although sign A25 is literally the Vienna Convention sign for what OSM globally tags as hazard=dangerous_junction.

[Dimitar5555]

All stop signs in Bulgaria are stop=minor.

Should be a separate highway=stop preset for Bulgaria (and maybe other countries?) that automatically adds stop=minor?

Probably no. Navigation software usually knows where it is driving and should take the national law into consideration. Just like it knows that maxspeed:type=bg:urban is 50 km/h.

[tordans]

It sounds to me that at this point of research the PR does what it is supposed to do, right?
Does anyone see a reason to not merge it as is?

[1ec5]

Probably no. Navigation software usually knows where it is driving and should take the national law into consideration. Just like it knows that maxspeed:type=bg:urban is 50 km/h.

Speed limits are probably not a great precedent for the idea of implicit national defaults, which are difficult to implement in general. There was a substantial effort to help data consumers interpret the mapping community’s default speed limit expectations, but so far uptake is minimal, and only OsmAnd supports maxspeed:type=*.

Looking more closely, this documentation does imply that data consumers infer stop=minor country by country or treat minor as the default, but this is very obscure from a data consumer standpoint. There’s no mention of which countries are affected in that page, the stop=minor page, the associated data item, “OSM tags for routing”, etc. On the contrary, at least one router apparently requires stop=minor to avoid overpenalizing when crossing a highway=stop at the intersection node. (But this is a non-issue if the stop node is at the stop line.)

The bottom line is that this PR will make it more difficult for mappers to add stop=all/minor or even know when it’s already present, so you should really be sure this is just hypothetical and not a realistic scenario:

In practice officials don't always follow the law and they might create stop=all junction...

[Dimitar5555]

The bottom line is that this PR will make it more difficult for mappers to add stop=all/minor or even know when it’s already present, so you should really be sure this is just hypothetical and not a realistic scenario:

In practice officials don't always follow the law and they might create stop=all junction...

There’s a common internal joke in Bulgaria: "Bulgaria - the country of unlimited opportunities." It’s used whenever something happens that feels so absurd it couldn’t possibly happen anywhere else. Sometimes it even feels uncomfortably true…

But in all seriousness, a stop=all situation here is extremely hypothetical and very unlikely. Traffic organization changes go through a strict, multi-step process that involves at least one dozen people:

• The mayor issues an order for a change.
• A licensed engineer prepares all required drawings in line with legislation.
• The project goes to an expert commission for approval, which typically includes:
  • Traffic Police
  • Fire Service
  • Local transport officials (e.g. "Transport Directorate", "Traffic Management", "Road Organisation" or whatever it might be called)
  • The local public transit operator (if affected)
  • The State Road Agency (if state roads are involved)
• Only if the commission approves, the mayor/State Road Agency gives the final sign-off.

(Verified by trying convince the local municipality that what they did on a road 10 years was legal back then but it isn't anymore and it should be fixed. Still waiting for a resolution...)

Given this amount of paperwork and scrutiny, it’s practically impossible for a junction with stop signs on all approaches to slip through. And even if, under some bizarre set of circumstances, it did happen, locals/users of this road would immediately notice, the media would pick it up, and it would be corrected very quickly.

Yes, the mayor may say "I want stop signs on all sides on this junction" but it’s precisely the job of the commission and the traffic engineers to prevent such things.