Comment by VincentEvans | Hacker News Reader

Comment by VincentEvans | Hacker News Reader

Personally, I find it odd that traffic laws in US actually mandate (!) that bicyclists are to use the roadway and not the sidewalk.

Growing up in former USSR, I, along with other kids, used a bike to get around and for pleasure and have always stayed on the sidewalk (I don't think there were any laws about bikes).

From experience, I feel there's very little chance of injuring anyone, and even if it does happen - it is likely to be much less frequent and much less serious than what we observe with the bikes sharing the road with the cars. On rare occasions (rural locations) where there was no sidewalk - you'd ride towards oncoming traffic, same as what common sense recommends for pedestrians - so that you can see the cars and can avoid them if situation calls for it. That's probably illegal in US, since it appears that bikes here are somehow deemed more like motor vehicles and not pedestrians.

To conclude - I think the status quo is misguided (originally wrote stupid) and dangerous and traffic laws oughtta be changed to put soft squishy humans on two wheels on the sidewalks.

I always use the sidewalk when biking (legal in my area), but, besides the law, I can see some arguments against it. For one, many sidewalks are in bad repair, so if you have a bike designed for the flat surface of a road, a bumpy sidewalk can be a problem. I have a BMX-style bike, so no problem for me...the bumps are fun.

Another point is, even if it's a nice sidewalk, you generally can't go as fast as the road because of the danger of running into pedestrians and other random obstacles like fire hydrants, telephone poles, etc.

Yet another point, is that I hear very frequently that it's statistically safer to ride on the street. I haven't found a solid source for this though, so maybe it's not true. Or maybe it's true for a certain style/attitude of biking that doesn't apply to me. In my town, I certainly feel much safer on the sidewalk. Perhaps I have a higher chance of a minor injury on the sidewalk, but I will take that over a lower chance of getting hit by a car.

Generally, my attitude while riding is that I'm a pedestrian who can move a little faster than walking-speed, not an automobile that can move a little slower than driving speed.

I used to think as you do concerning the pavement. However, experience cycling[1] has taught me that the pavement is not a safer place to cycle. Cars expect slow-moving pedestrians on the pavement, not fast-moving bicycles. Consequently, cycling on the pavement leads to a lot of collisions with cars as they pull in/out of driveways.

[1] In Oxfordshire, UK -- this may be inapplicable to the US.

You go as far as to say that riding a bike on a sidewalk is not a safer place for the bicyclist as compared to riding it on a roadway along with cars? I'd expect you to be in a minority in this, your experience must be very different from mine.

The way I see it - if my 13 y/o daughter takes a bike to go to convenience store a couple of blocks down the street to get some ice cream with friends - I sure hope she breaks the traffic laws and stays on the sidewalk.

Most places in US children (and adults on bikes accompanying those children) are allowed to ride on sidewalks by law. I do find it safer to ride on the roads though mainly because of dogs, joints, and car's from driveways and making right turns. But the main concern is that on a sidewalk if I were going as fast as on the road I would be a danger to not only myself but other pedestrians.

I don't know if it's safer but it is still really stupid to use the sidewalk. Not for a kid, your 13-year-old would not be told to use the street.

But I live in Chicago and, like you, used to think that it would be safer to be on the sidewalk because of the really stupid drivers that we tend to have here. A few days after making that decision, I nearly hit a person coming out of their house. There was no way for me to see them and not way for them to see me. As a pedestrian, I've been nearly hit coming around corners and I also barely managed to avoid getting hit from the front by a jackass who wasn't paying attention.

It's just not very safe for the pedestrians. There are so many circumstances where it's impossible to avoid a collision.

Although I will say that I am shitting bricks every time I ride on the street, even if I am on a bike lane. Most drivers are really good and they pay attention, but there are some that are just fucking stupid. They have no idea what the laws are and they think a bike should be on the sidewalk so they drive erratically to get me off the road or they honk and yell at me even though I'm doing everything right.

Yes, I would go that far. But, as I said, perhaps my area is unrepresentative. There are quite a lot of cyclists in Oxfordshire. If you cycle on the pavement, the cars don't expect you. If you cycle on the road, they usually do.

I suppose I should add the caveat that very young cyclists are better off on the pavement even here. When I take my little sister to the shops, I have her cycle on the pavement. That's because she can't cycle in a straight enough line for the roads to be safe.

Locally you can identify a subdivision construction date pretty well as pre/post 1990 because post 1990-ish means no sidewalks. Post 2000 are of course all McMansions stuffed in like sardines, but there is a decade or so of normal houses without sidewalks in the 90s

I live in an area where population has been vaguely constant since around 1900, so we don't have many subdivisions like that, but I can imagine someone living in Las Vegas or parts of suburban CA may have never seen a residential sidewalk before. For those folks, residential sidewalks are pretty much like urban downtown sidewalks except much narrower, thus the areas with sidewalks tend to ban bicycles on them, there just isn't space for pedestrians to safely share with bikers. Seriously, only like 2 feet wide in spots.

The sidewalks in my area can't accommodate pedestrians and bikers at the same time, but I still use sidewalks while biking, and just hop off onto the road when I need to pass a pedestrian. Can't say it has been a problem for me. If I don't deem the road safe enough for the few meters required, I get off my bike and walk until the sidewalk is clear again. This of course doesn't work for everyone's type of bike and/or style of riding, but just thought I'd share my perspective.

This article, with some data about accident rates in various for/against traffic situations, disagrees with your intuition about riding against traffic:

http://www.bicyclinglife.com/Library/riskfactors.htm

Ha, true. Thanks.

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