Skiers are often expected to keep right, and even yield the track if being overtaken. It’s not as different as you expect, especially with skiers who simply won’t yield.
Our local bike path has signs telling all travelers to keep right, and to let people pass. If people are walking side by side and taking up a full half of the bike path I expect them to move single file if needed in heavy traffic to allow bikes to pass.
I would be surprised if vehicles are allowed on sidewalks in your municipality, but not shocked. According to this site, bicycles are considered vehicles in Georgia;
Vehicles are usually prohibited on sidewalks in legal theory (but not in practice, as I see daily).
In Florida, we have specific rules to cover the sidewalk case.
The state agrees that bikes are vehicles:
But it goes on to give the special regulations:
Specific comments about passing:
They also clarify that bikes are (basically) the only vehicle allowed on sidewalks:
Sadly, it is silent about the specific audible signal to use.
Ah, I see. Well, all those conditions are ignored here, also. The cyclists on the sidewalks are the least likely to ever use their bells or alert pedestrians about their presence - they just go flying by, startling me. I like it when I’m walking with my little grocery cart so I can have it rolling by my side, to keep the bikes further away from me.
Are these couriers that are doing this? I agree that the couriers are really bad cyclists, but as someone who is a regular cyclist in the city, I’m kind of shocked that the regular cycling community would be zipping by you in such an unsafe manner, on the sidewalk.
Nope, not couriers, just regular schmoes on bikes on the sidewalk.
I think that’s one of the disconnects we run into every time one of these discussions comes up here. The Doper bicyclists who respond tend to be the “serious” recreational/competitive/hobbyist bicyclists who ride the “right” way, and have educated themselves (and wear the spandex and helmets). The people riding on the sidewalks and generally being buffoons are the bicyclists who are only bicyclists because they don’t have a car/driver’s license, and haven’t learned the rules - as far as they know, bicycles count as pedestrians. Around here, the people I see riding on the sidewalks and ignoring the rules are the same people I see riding in the dark dressed in dark clothing, with no helmet, no lights, and plastic bags full of groceries swinging from their handlebars. And smoking while they’re riding.