Originally Posted by Ignatz
I ask only to help construct arguments against the motor vehicle drivers who tell me I should be on the sidewalk.
Bicyclists are hardly ever
required to use the sidewalk. Motorists suggesting otherwise and suggesting that bicyclists are banned from the roadway in all likelyhood simply do not know what they're talking about. The exact wording varies in different states but, in general, bicyclists have the rights and responsibilities of drivers of vehicles. This includes the right to use roads set aside for vehicle use, which is essentially every road.
The preceeding is true regardless of whether a bicycle is defined as a 'vehicle' as in my home state or a 'device', as it is in CA.
There are some rare exceptions (see the thread:
Where are cyclists banned besides freeways?), but bicyclists are hardly ever banned from using the roadway.
------------------------------
Whether bicyclists are banned from riding places other than the roadway is a totally separate issue:
Originally Posted by Ignatz
What about the contention that sidewalks are designated for pedestrian use and the definition of pedestrian specifically excludes cyclists...
This does not necessarily mean that bicyclists are
prohibited from riding on the sidewalk. Sidewalks are
designed for pedestrians but use by others is often
permitted.
In most states, motor vehicle use of sidewalks is prohibited. But bicycle use of sidewalks is usually permitted. Where bicycling on the sidewalk is permitted, bicyclists have few if any rights on the sidewalk; the rights bicyclists have when on the road are gone. In some states, bicyclists on the sidewalk have the rights and responsibilities of pedestrians (bicyclists become POWs, 'pedestrians on wheels'). In other states, bicyclists on the sidewalk have even fewer rights than pedestrians.
In some cases, misguided safety nannies and others who simply see bicycling as a nuisance have succeeded in getting the rights of bicyclists to choose where to ride taken away entirely. Even some so-called bicycling advocates either support laws against sidewalk riding or don't actively oppose them. This despite a total lack of credible evidence that sidewalk riding is inherently dangerous. Sidewalk riders don't meet the lofty appearance and mileage standards of these so-called advocates and don't fit their cycling paradigm (sorry for the use of the word "paradigm" but that fairly useless but important-sounding (pretentious) word is often used by people who apparently think it gives some kind of validity to their highly limited world view
).