In built-up downtown areas I can see it being illegal to bike on the sidewalk since people can come around and out of buildings in the blink of an eye. But despite current laws I can’t see it being illegal elsewhere, as safe biking on the sidewalk is much safer than safe biking on the road.
At least on the sidewalk you can avoid unsafe intersections and only cross conservatively. Plus if you do get hit it will usually be at low speed. And the number of car-bike interactions that must be successfully negotiated is smaller because they only happen at intersections. But no amount of safe biking is going to make dozens of cars a minute whizzing past you at a 30 mph difference pass you any safer.
Sir T-Cups, I’m glad you’re still alive. Stay that way, OK?
I agree with your entire post, except for the quoted part. There are many drivers who are not used to looking for pedestrians. I’ve been in the situation you describe many times, only on foot. There are a lot of drivers who not only do not stop at the stop sign, but actually speed up through the intersection while only looking left.
I think you have me confused with someone else on this one. I’ve never been almost run over with my own car.
And holy hell I am still overwhelmed with the amount of responses that it is illegal to ride a bike on a sidewalk. I never, in a million years, would have thought this…ignorance fought I guess.
To update the story: There is a bike shop a couple miles north that he and I are going to go to together tomorrow (closed Sunday and Monday). This is especially good because the guy will be there when the bike guy says “there is frame damage it’s totaled” and then (hopefully) we can just go to Target and buy me a new 200 whatever dollar bike and just call the thing over.
This accident is 95% your fault. The driver is under no obligation to replace anything damaged on your bike. Consider this a cheap lesson in why you shouldn’t ride your bike like an idiot and/or illegally.
No, it doesn’t. Where I live you are not allowed to drive for a year if you lose the sight in one eye, but that’s about that.
I don’t think it would have been noted at all where I live, had I ever taken a license.
True. I don’t know how many glasses and other things, placed on my blind side, I have toppled throughout my life.
Likewise pedestrians should get the hell out of bicycle lanes. Not that I cycle anymore, but I always wonder if people think pictures of bicycles on sign posts or painted on the ground are there for ornamental purposes.
Near where I live there is a bike path right next to the sidewalk. For reasons I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand, most pedestrians prefer walking on the bike path.
I am looking and looking and I see no where that it is illegal to ride on the sidewalk in Alabama (where I’m living for the summer). The laws state about bike paths, and there are plenty here, just not on 59 where I was riding. So unless someone can Google-fu better than me, or can interpret the laws better I don’t believe I was doing anything illegal.
Also, there is no way under God’s green earth that I am obligated to replace my own bike.
Ok then what was I supposed to do? Stop? I’m going to stop at every single little restaurant outlet that a car is sitting at while they’re stopped? And I wasn’t at an intersection, nor was I “blasting” or going “the wrong way”.
These are generally city laws. Besides, even if it is legal to ride on the sidewalk that does not give you the right of way when entering the intersection. In other words, when you are on the sidewalk, you are not on the roadway. When you do enter the roadway you have a responsibility to do so in a safe manner, yielding to vehicles already in the roadway.
Of course you are. The accident is mostly your fault.
Oh my! The horrors of riding a bicycle in a safe manner!
Well, my Google-fu isn’t great or anything, but when I search for “Is it illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk in Alabama?” I get quite a few results saying that it isn’t.
I don’t walk in bike paths, but I do understand why a pedestrian might choose to do so. When I walk on the sidewalk, there are many uneven places that cause me to lose my footing and stumble if I am not looking down at my feet while I walk. Most bike paths are smooth.
I wasn’t in a roadway. It was on private property. I didn’t jet out in a three lane traffic or anything. Right here is exactly where it happened. I was on the sidewalk (come towards the camera) dude was right where the thick white line is and he pulled out and hit me as I was crossing in front of him. Look at the street, there is NO room for me to ride there. And how do you think I was riding? going 30MPH with my eyes closed? I clearly saw the guy, like I and others have said my only fault was assuming the driver wasn’t a goddamn idiot.
that may be age dependent. trikes (child size) and bikes with training wheels and below a certain age would be allowed.
decades ago if you lived in a small city, with a small sized newspaper, it was the path taken for bicycle delivery. though the prohibition might be unenforced if your weren’t running people over.
This is one of my pet peeves. Older cyclists who who ride against the traffic. A driver has to have some confidence that after he has swung his eyes from right to left (having viewed the clearance of slow pedestrians and unlawful cyclists to the left) to view the immediate concern of traffic in the closest lane as he pulls out that he is good to go. If the driver has to look again for a cyclist from the right, knowing these guys can appear out of no where in a split second, then he will never be able to safely exit .
It gets even worse for the driver when he backs out of the driveway.
You’re lucky that you were hit by someone that’s ignorant of the law and feels guilty for hitting you. If I’d hit you, you’d have to take me to court to pay for your bike, and you’d lose, because you were in the wrong here.
