Why It’s Safer: It takes a lot of physical energy and time for a cyclist to regain momentum from a dead stop. By rolling through, the cyclist clears the intersection much faster. This reduces traffic backups and gets the cyclist out of the “danger zone” (the intersection) where most blind-spot collisions occur. The cyclist can see you just fine. He’s probably not suicidal so he’s probably not going to blow through the sign into your car. Imagine if every stop sign was a yield. You have to see what’s coming before continuing. Same on my bike. I don’t blow through a stop sign if i see a driver near or in the intersection that doesn’t give me eye contact because i’m not suicidal but i’ll roll through anything that I can merge into without causing disruption. But i live in a big city where the cars respect the motos and cyclists so your mileage may vary.