Adult bicyclists: get off the damn sidewalk!

The BBQ Pit
21

Let me add this gloss to this well-deserved pitting: Bicyclists: If you want to be treated like vehicles, which you are always self-righteously saying you do in letters to the editor and other typical fora for self-righteousness, then fucking act like vehicles. That means:

  • Ride on the road, not the sidewalk.
  • Observe one-way street signs (because, as a frequent pedestrian on such streets, I don’t want to have to worry about some bat-out-of-hell cyclist going the wrong way when I make my crossing decision).
  • Observe stop signs and lights.
  • When you are on the road, stay as far fucking right as you can, so you don’t hold up a line of traffic while you lollygag along.

I’m sick of cyclists who want it both ways. They want cities to reorganize themselves to acknowledge the vehicle-ness of bikes, but they want to zoom around in total disregard for the laws governing vehicles.

I was really disappointed to learn recently that in my city, the law specifically authorizes cyclists to ride on the sidewalk. (Unlike in other places I’ve lived, where the law specifically prohibited it.) Damn it!

22

Most of the rest of your complaints I agree with, but not this. Bikes are slower then cars, but they both have access to the streets. It’s part of the whole package, it’s necessary for cars to deal with it.

23

Cyclists on sidewalks are quite often hit by cars. Most drivers don’t expect something/someone to come out of a sidewalk and into the intersection at >5mph. And when coming out of a parking lot or side street, many drivers don’t even stop before they get past the sidewalk.

That only applies to roads whose far-right lane is wide enough to share with a car. There aren’t very many of those around here.

24

My husband rides his bike to work at the post office every day, and I’d much rather he rode on the sidewalk and not get hit by idiot drivers. Besides, nobody walks on the sidewalks anyway, in DecaturIllinois. Everybody around here is either in a car, or they’re home. The only place you’ll find people actually walking on a sidewalk is up at the Karen Court subdivision, where the crazy suburbanites power-walk up and down MacArthur from Mound Road to Pershing. Now, them you gotta watch out for, run ya down every time. :smiley:

25

This thread has inspired me to look up the laws related to bicycling in my jurisdiction, in prep for my spring/summer renewed interest in cycling. I’m always overly cautious and consider that my bicycle is a vehicle on the road just like a car, but now I’m going to be throwing hand signals that easily 80% of drivers aren’t going to recognize. I hope you’re all happy. :smiley:

26

I can vouch for this.

A few years ago I started bicycling to get around town and my campus more quickly, as I live in a city with terrible bus service. I was inexperienced with bikes, hadn’t really driven one since I was a kid, and rode on the sidewalks because I was too scared (and I thought too out of shape, too slow to keep up reasonably). There are few bike lanes around here; I used them when I could.

Fast forward a few months. I’m riding alone the sidewalk, downhill so pretty fast, approaching not really an intersection but the exit lane from a parking lot. The lot was next to the building I rode beside, which completely blocked my view and the view of any exiting cars.

I tried to cross just as someone else was leaving the lot. She hit me, started braking; my body slammed against her hood and I slid across it. I walked off in a daze and found out later I had a pretty nasty leg gash (adrenaline?), but otherwise unhurt, and her car just had some scratches (though she didn’t notice – she didn’t even get out of her car).

My bike was never the same and I’ve only ridden a few times since. Don’t ride on the sidewalk.

27

I am with Duck Duck Goose on this one. When I bike to work, no one is on the sidewalk walking. If there is anyone, I have plenty of time to give them a wide, wide berth, or get off and walk the bike past them if they are walking a dog. Riding on the street would be suicidal, there are SUV drivers on cellphones all over the “quiet residential” streets. On the sidewalk I can stop and look for these guys coming, and I have enough elevation to see past parked cars. On the busy road to work there is no room between the driving cars and the cars at the curb. I cannot even pretend that I could keep up near the 35 mile per hour pace anyway. I would love a bike lane.

28

Paranoid, you have a good point, I treat the parking lot entrances like intersections. But drivers seem just as happy to drive over a bike in the street as a sidewalk in these parts.

29

Cyclist here …

The problem is that so many cars want you OFF the road. If the choice is doing the proper legal thing (and getting honks and glares and cusses from drivers who don’t realize that it’s the proper legal thing) and doing something illegal that saves you the stress of the derision, many people will choose the latter.

There is one part of my route where if you are heading east and you want to go in any direction but south, you have to either

  • make a 45 degree turn to the north, ride on a sidewalk (which is illegal) and then a path through a park (a park that is always filled with people; once when I was riding on that path I was hit by a ball that some kids were playing with), or
  • do something that is perfectly legal and safe, but which makes drivers VERY nervous because it requires you to be where no cyclist normally is, and some drivers have to pass you at high speeds on the right.

There are no signs indicating any of this. It is up to the individual cyclist to realize that if they don’t want to be channeled south, they had better take some quick evasive action.

I always do the latter option, the legal one, because I am not bothered by drivers’ curses any more. I am one of the only ones.

I am not defending unsafe or stupid cyclists. I just want to note that sometimes, the legal thing to do is not at all the safest thing to do, and sometimes what appears to a driver to be the safest thing, may not be. The cyclist is at much greater risk and so they usually have a very good idea of their safest option. Frequently, the safest option is to get the hell away from the nearest automobiles.

For instance, in the previous example above, there is a light just west of that stupid intersection where I have to do something that scares drivers. I will often (safely) run that light so I can get to the stupid intersection FIRST, so they can see me there in a place they are not expecting me to be. This is much safer than proceeding through the green light when they do, and winding my way among them, coming up beside them, through their blind spots, etc.

Other examples are going the wrong way on small one-way streets to avoid dangerous intersections. Next time you are cussing at a cyclist for such things, ask yourself, would you rather be stuck behind them as they waited to make an unassisted left turn from the centre lane of a major street?

Re: th OP - I totally agree, riding on the sidewalk is wrong, and extremely dangerous. If you must be on the sidewalk on your bike, remember that YOU are trespassing on pedestrian turf, and the onus is on YOU to do everything you can to avoid hitting pedestrians. Also you are likely to get smushed by a car who doesn’t expect to see a cyclist on the sidewalk. So go at pedestrian speed. Or better still, walk your bike. Easier for everyone.

30

I just wanted to heartily second this emotion.

As others have pointed out, the danger of being hit by a car while on the sidewalk is immense. I will stop and wait for pedestrians to cross, because they approach the intersection at a speed slow enough for me to see them and recognize their intentions. If you come flying across the road at 20 mph, I as a driver have no chance to react to you - you’re under my wheels before I even know you’re there. I have no interest in hurting anybody else with my car - please don’t make that happen. Neither of us wants it.

And parents - if your kids have to bike on sidewalks, make this crystal clear to them, too. Cars can’t stop for them if they fly across intersections at speed, and that includes back alleys. As a driver, you are supposed to come to a complete stop before proceding across a sidewalk, but very few drivers do this (or even know that it’s the law). It’s not right that drivers break the law like this all the time, but bikers will always lose a fight with a car, whether the car is in the wrong or not.

31

This is just…utterly…wrong. OF COURSE bicycles have a place on the street. Read your fucking California Vehicle Code. “Keep pace”??? What on earth are you talking about. I don’t know if you’re aware, but bicycles are human-powered; they can’t keep up with a motor vehicle. (Well some of them can if they’re really in shape, but…)

32

It sounds like EVERYONE bikes faster then me. Most of the drivers downriver here act like Cowgirl states: They honk, curse, and gesture, when they notice you at all. They try to make right turns over bicycle rides they have overtaken in the street.

33

I’m sure that near misses always seem nearer when you’re involved, but this is doesn’t make much sense to me. If you’ve ever come really close to hitting a cyclist, then that cyclist has just screwed up, so your advice is basically saying, “Don’t screw up.”

Look at it this way: at least twice a year, I encounter a driver who is actually trying to run me off the road or off my bike. I would have no way of knowing if you are one of those drivers if I saw you on the road.

34

I’m sorry, but you run red lights in order to get in front of motorists, and you wonder why people honk and curse at you? :dubious:

35

No, you totally missed the point. It was very clear - go back and read it again.

He’s saying that you shouldn’t ride your bike on the sidewalk and then across the street because your speed is much faster than a pedestrian, and you don’t give drivers enough time to react.

If you’re correctly riding in the street, obeying traffic laws, it’s safer because your movements will be predictable to drivers. If you all of a sudden come whizzing out into the street, perpendicular to traffic, it’s more dangerous.

The advice is more specific than “don’t screw up”; it’s “don’t ride on the sidewalk”.

36

It can’t be wrong if it’s an opinion. And I don’t give a damn that they can’t keep pace because they’re “human-powered,” that’s the precise reason why they don’t belong on the road.

37

People like you fuck up the whole equation. Bicyclists bitch because people like YOU won’t acknowledge that they’re supposed to share the road with cars. So then they ride on the sidewalk and endanger pedestrians.

I can’t stand people who think they get to make up their own laws.

38

In fact my strategy of running the red (which BTW is at a driveway at a university, if there are no pedestrians there the intersection is empty) actually greatly reduces the honking and cursing, because instead of sneaking up on drivers in places they don’t expect me to be, I remain in their full view at all times.

Red Barchetta, by your logic the road should belong to me and my fellow bipedalists, because we are way faster than morning traffic. The cars, trucks, and public transit vehicles simply can’t keep up.

39

I can’t stand that attitude. Your opinion most certainly can be wrong. It can also be pig ignorant and asinine. All sorts of conveyances – hell, including motorized wheelchairs in my jurisdiction – have a right to the roadway. Deal with it or write your congressperson to have the law changed.

40

I do both, so I guess I am equally pissing everyone off :slight_smile:

When I am riding my bike with my child in her bike seat I will ride on the road - if it’s a side or residential road. I obey all laws as if I was a car - including four way stops - although this does seem to confuse some drivers.

If I am riding on a busy thoroughfare I ride on the sidewalk if my child is with me. I ride carefully and if I can’t clearly see a side street as I ride up to it I slow down/stop, if I come across a pedestrian they do not only get the a wide berth, but I slow way down to pass them carefully.

BUT

I am not a commuter on a bike - that makes a HUGE difference.