Advocacy & Safety - Illegal to Ride on the Sidewalk?

Is this true? Someone told me this with absolute certainty. I'm new to cycling, and I'd like to know the facts.

Depends entirely on your local ordinances. Use the google.

Here in Montreal , It's a ticket for sure , nothing expensive , but it's still a ticket.

What state and county/city are you located in?

-Kurt

Yes, pretty much everywhere in North America.

In my home country, it is illegal, but there is a loophole. If your tires are 24" or less in diameter, then it is LEGAL. This was meant to protect children.

Folding bikes are a different story, but is part of the loophole.

Yes, pretty much everywhere in North America.

In my home country, it is illegal, but there is a loophole. If your tires are 24" or less in diameter, then it is LEGAL. This was meant to protect children.

Folding bikes are a different story, but is part of the loophole.

Indeed, in Toronto at least, bicycles with rims larger than 24" are prohibited from riding on sidewalks. One can be ticketed even if their rim-size is below 24". If they fail to respect pedestrian traffic, they can be cited.

To the OP: it is best to check your municipality bylaws. Keep in mind, many areas do not enforce the bylaw and fines can vary. But moreover, it is extremely dangerous to ride on sidewalks, legal concerns aside. Pedestrians step out unexpectedly, motorists exiting narrow alley-ways have little or no peripheral views and there are often uneven surfaces and other barriers, hazards that are hard to see until it's too late and even harder to avoid due to the constriction of space. Learn to ride on the road. It is considerably safer and more enjoyable.

Hopefully you wont let a petty legality take precedent over your
safety and will use the walk if you feel its the safest place for you
to be in the situation you find yourself in. Just like anything else,
sidewalk cycling has potential problems but its not rocket science
or quantum physics...... Look. Look again. Proceed. :)

You can ride on the sidewalks here if they are 2 metres across, don't have any signs that prohibits this, or if your wheels are 24 inches or less... this is designed for children although my daughters hate the sidewalk and like dad, prefer to take the lane.

In the winter the sidewalks become one of the best /safest routes when the roads are piled deep with snow and the lanes narrow and as far as I have been told by the police, they won't ticket cyclists who use the sidewalks in these conditions.

My loophole... :D

http://www.ravingbikefiend.com/bikepics/forreststronglight1.jpg

As a courier I do spend a little time on the sidewalks as I roll up to buildings but it really isn't a place I like to ride as you can't make any good time and it just isn't that safe.

Hopefully you wont let a petty legality take precedent over your
safety and will use the walk if you feel its the safest place for you
to be in the situation you find yourself in. Just like anything else,
sidewalk cycling has potential problems but its not rocket science
or quantum physics...... Look. Look again. Proceed. :)

Exactly. There are no prizes for living and dying by vehicular cycling.

Thanks for the info. The street connected to my block has a bike path, so there's no problem there. However, the main roads don't have bike paths, but there are sidewalks. I have a 21 speed bicycle, but I'm still hesitant to take the lane with cars going 50+ mph, especially when traffic gets heavy. This is all a new experience for me. I know I need more confidence.
By the way, I'm in the Phoenix area.

My loophole... :D

That little Raleigh Twenty of yours just looks happy anywhere :D . Most tasteful road conversion I've seen of one, to boot...

-Kurt

In Hawaii, it is illegal to ride on sidewalks in business districts.

That little Raleigh Twenty of yours just looks happy anywhere :D . Most tasteful road conversion I've seen of one, to boot...

-Kurt

Thanks... "Forrest" used to work for Shell Oil as one of their plant bikes (they named him that) and I plan on taking him to work tomorrow so he can add messengering to his resume.

BTW - He's a Phillip's 20.

http://www.ravingbikefiend.com/bikepics/forreststronglight2.jpg

in my town, they have signs posted in the business district that prohibits bicycles from the sidewalk. It's really a mess, since the business district is on a long hill, and the main drag is a one-way street. There is an alley, also mostly one way, that they should make into a bike lane, but too many people rely on it for car traffic.

I do not think bicycles should be allowed on sidewalks. Bicycle-pedestrian accidents are very bad for the pedestrian. There are some places where the town seems to want cyclists on the sidewalk, one in particular on a very steep hill. I don't ride the sidewalk there, last time I did there was a ninja pedestrian and we scared the crap out of each other.

yes, unless you are a cop

I hope the OP has taken the time and effort to look it up him/herself ... but just in case the OP hasn't started looking into this him/herself, here are some websites to get you going ...

http://azbikelaw.org/
http://azbikelaw.org/blog/sidewalk-cycling-in-arizona/
http://phoenix.gov/POLICE/bikesa1.html

Even if it is not illegal, sidewalk riding is much more dangerous than riding in the street. I suggest you get off the sidewalk and onto the road as soon as possible.

Even if it is not illegal, sidewalk riding is much more dangerous than riding in the street. I suggest you get off the sidewalk and onto the road as soon as possible.

But, sometimes there is a lot of bull on the roads.
Today's 85 milie ride:

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh187/10wheels/DaveandBull.jpg

This isn't a black white thing... in the winter here the residential streets can become all but impassable while the main roads and MUTS are generally well cleared.

If you do ride on the sidewalks then you have to take extra precautions.

This isn't a black white thing... I don't know, that cow looks completely black to me.

sideWALK? Hmmmmmm . . .

sideWALK? Hmmmmmm . . .

You get a lot of snow down in Az don't ya ?

:)

For folks in warmer climes I don't think there is any reason to ride the sidewalks unless the road is flooded.

Barring some pretty rare exceptions, sidewalk riding tends to be an awful idea. It's one of the best ways to get hit by a car (think about when you're driving and leaving a parking lot, how often do roll out on the sidewalk so that you can see oncoming traffic better). In some cities it's downright illegal, though another common approach is to restrict cycling in business districts (and ignore residential areas).

If you're talking about a sidewalk with driveways, cross-streets, and pedestrians you really shouldn't be going any faster than you would be walking... you're going to get hit sooner or later if you start zipping down sidewalks. That said, there's times when the sidewalk looks more like a half-decent MUP, and there's no driveways and cross-streets are stretched way apart... and there are times when these can be better than a bad street. Be smart about it and use some discretion, but there's no good reason to put yourself in more danger if it's one of the few sidewalks that is actually better than the street next to it.

As for legality, depends on your city. Google is your friend, though I'd wager that if you were lazy and posted where you live on here, some noble soul would do the dirty work for you.

Here in the Dallas area, I have no idea if it's legal or not, but it's commonly done and presumably not enforced if it is illegal. You see people in lycra on road bikes on the road, and people in jeans going 8 mph on the sidewalk. And there's actually probably more of the latter than the former.

What's funny to me is that you'll see people riding like this even when it's a nice wide road without much traffic. Go figure.

It may or may not be legal- in a lot of urban areas of the US it's not legal in high pedestrian traffic areas but is legal other places in the same city. It's statistically not safer, though. You're much more likely to be hit by turning vehicles because they barely look for walkers on the sidewalk, much less someone moving at bike speed. Also, people coming out of driveways and parking lots definitely don't look at the sidewalk. The rule that you learned as a kid to dismount at every street crossing came from these circumstances. As for kids riding on the sidewalk, they rarely break walking/running speed so it isn't quite as unsafe for them as it is for even a slow adult.

http://bicyclesafe.com/ is an excellent resource on these things.

Yes, it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk in some places. It's a victory of sorts for misguided safety nannies everywhere and for their allies in the bicycling community, especially know-it-all "there's only one way to ride but we aren't elitists" VC-ist ideologues who have been exagerating the dangers of sidewalk riding for decades (and being downright dishonest about it in some cases), mainly because they see sidewalk riding (or almost any other kind of riding, for that matter) as a threat to their precious 'vehicular paradigm' (what a hoot!).

Laws against sidewalk riding are among the most ridiculous on the books, although well intentioned in many cases. Laws based on wheel size, totally ignoring adult folding bicycles, are downright hilarious.

Anti sidewalk riding laws are fairly unenforceable. It's illegal to ride on the sidewalk where I often ride but sometimes I feel like the only bicyclist who uses the street. Yea, that law is effective. :rolleyes:

I find it rather amusing that some who claim to be cycling advocates aren't opposed to anti-sidewalk riding laws which are selectively enforced at best. My advice is: don't ride on the sidewalk if you look suspicious, or are intent on exercising a constitutional right. On the other hand, if you fit the right profile, your chances of getting away with it are quite good.

Anti sidewalk riding laws are fairly common, proving once again that common sense is not as common as one would hope.

The main reason not to ride on the sidewalk is that it's very inefficient. It can be dangerous but the fear-mongering that some engage in is way over the top and discredits their other arguments. Personally, I'd like to get a ticket for riding on the sidewalk because I'd like to frame it-- but I ride on the sidewalk so seldom that I don't think it's going to happen.

Even if it is not illegal, sidewalk riding is much more dangerous than riding in the street. I suggest you get off the sidewalk and onto the road as soon as possible.


It's statistically not safer, though.
What credible "statistics" indicate that sidewalk cycling is much more dangerous than cycling on the adjacent street?

It's illegal to ride the sidewalks here, but seeing as the number of sidewalk riders outnumber road riders about 10-1 i'd say it's rarely enforced. I'm willing to bet it would only be enforced in dense pedestrians areas (ie areas with lots of pedestrians, not areas with dense pedestrians).

Yes, it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk in some places. It's a victory of sorts for misguided safety nannies everywhere and for their allies in the bicycling community, especially know-it-all "there's only one way to ride but we aren't elitists" VC-ist ideologues who have been exagerating the dangers of sidewalk riding for decades (and being downright dishonest about it in some cases), mainly because they see sidewalk riding (or almost any other kind of riding, for that matter) as a threat to their precious 'vehicular paradigm' (what a hoot!).

Laws against sidewalk riding are among the most ridiculous on the books, although well intentioned in many cases. Laws based on wheel size, totally ignoring adult folding bicycles, are downright hilarious.

Anti sidewalk riding laws are fairly unenforceable. It's illegal to ride on the sidewalk where I often ride but sometimes I feel like the only bicyclist who uses the street. Yea, that law is effective. :rolleyes:

I find it rather amusing that some who claim to be cycling advocates aren't opposed to anti-sidewalk riding laws which are selectively enforced at best. My advice is: don't ride on the sidewalk if you look suspicious, or are intent on exercising a constitutional right. On the other hand, if you fit the right profile, your chances of getting away with it are quite good.

Anti sidewalk riding laws are fairly common, proving once again that common sense is not as common as one would hope.

The main reason not to ride on the sidewalk is that it's very inefficient. It can be dangerous but the fear-mongering that some engage in is way over the top and discredits their other arguments. Personally, I'd like to get a ticket for riding on the sidewalk because I'd like to frame it-- but I ride on the sidewalk so seldom that I don't think it's going to happen.

It's all a matter of perspective and context. While you may condemn some as being dishonest safety nannies, perhaps you perceive cycling on the sidewalk in an entirely different situation or context from theirs. For instance, I live in a dense, urban environment with very narrow sidewalks, store-fronts and sometimes residences that immediately border the sidewalk. On the main avenue near my home where I see the majority of sidewalk cyclists, there are large concrete flower and tree planters, huge new garbage and recycling bins, utility poles and benches and considerable pedestrian traffic. There are a number of hidden alley-ways between buildings as well. Even directly outside my home, a mere 8 feet from the front door to the sidewalk, there is a thick concrete utility pole, steel fencing around the postage-stamp-sized front lawns or hedges and a few driveways. Yet on both these similar but different streets, cyclists often zip along at a good 10mph, dodging the obstacles and causing pedestrians to either step aside (sometimes onto the roadway itself) in order to avoid the approaching cyclist. In these circumstances, sidewalk cycling is very dangerous for everyone: pedestrians and cyclists alike. My son, just 5 years ago, when he was 10 was nudged by an SUV exiting one of these driveways as the drivers peripheral vision was severely impaired by a church that abutted the sidewalk on one side and the wall of a home on the other. Fortunately, the fall he suffered only scratched his bike and broke his helmet, but caused no other damage. Yet, it could have been a child in a stroller or a toddler a few feet ahead of his/her mother or father.

Conversely, in the suburbs where I used to live many many years ago, the sidewalks are situated far from homes and businesses, often bordering long swaths of unoccupied city green spaces with no structures of any kind nearby and few cross streets or driveways. The wide 4-6 lane avenues there are congested with speeding cars. They are hardly bicycle friendly and the sidewalks are far safer, if somewhat bumpy.

Different environments mean different circumstances. I have a rail overpass near my home and I often scoot up on the sidewalk to pass under it before returning to the road simply because the road narrows and the steep hill encourages motorists to speed and often pass me recklessly close. As well, the condition of the road at the very bottom of the dip is treacherous. However, if there are pedestrians using the underpass, I slow to a crawl and only pass if there is sufficient room and then do so very slowly. They have the right of way, after all and if I were walking I'd hope the same respect and consideration would be afforded to me.

Maybe we need to be more understanding of the circumstances and environments we are relating sidewalk cycling to before dismissing or disrespecting other experienced cyclists viewpoints.

It's legal here which also means that some drivers expect you to ride the high-zoot road bike on the sidewalk and get pissed when you're in the road.

Why would you want to? It's a nuisance to pedestrians, it's slow, and there's a reasonable chance of riding into someone as they step out of a shop or alleyway. There will be times when there's no one about, and you can take a short cut, for sure, but if there's anyone on the pavement, dismount to walk among them. Roads are for wheels, pavements are for feet.

Just an anecdote, but...

My best friend's grandmother was killed by a sidewalk bicyclist. She was stepping out of a shop and was knocked down by a cyclist who was riding along. She broke her hip and she never recovered.

The cyclist was a bicycle cop who are allowed to ride on the sidewalk in that city, by the way.

bf

It's different everywhere. Generalizations don't help. It's legal in my state. It's prohibited in certain places.

Maybe we need to be more understanding of the circumstances and environments we are relating sidewalk cycling to before dismissing or disrespecting other experienced cyclists viewpoints.

This would be too sensible. It's much easier to presume that because you're incapable of riding the sidewalk where you live, everyone else everywhere else should be just as incapable.

It's all a matter of perspective and context...


Different environments mean different circumstances...

Indeed. Those are two good arguments against the shotgun approach of making sidewalk cycling universally illegal. Anti-sidewalk laws are likely to result in the ticketing (or should I say 'harassment') of bicyclists engaged in harmless activities. Even such VC-ists ideologues as John Allen (and even Forester himself, for that matter) have said that riding on the sidewalk may be appropriate in some situations.

As far as different environments go, there are some sidewalks I'd be afraid to walk on-- but, then, anti-sidewalk riding laws don't really address the problem of bad sidewalks.


Maybe we need to be more understanding of the circumstances and environments we are relating sidewalk cycling to before dismissing or disrespecting other experienced cyclists viewpoints.It's not so much other bicyclists I mean to disrespect but, rather, the VC-ist ideology that is based primarily on disrespecting and dismissing the opinions of other cyclists.

Anti-sidewalk riding laws are silly at best. Even if I admitted that sidewalk riding is a problem (which it is in some cases), I wouldn't agree that blanket laws making it illegal are a reasonable solution.

And, yes, I think the trend toward more anti-sidewalk riding laws is an example of safety nannyism at its most absurd.

There's no constituancy for sidewalk riding. Hardly anyone speaks for sidewalk riders so when someone repeats the widely believed myth (or should I say 'big lie') that there exists somewhere some credible statistical evidence that sidewalk riding is inherently dangerous, it is rarely challenged. Hardly anybody advocates sidewalk cycling (and I certainly don't).

If the evidence suggests anything, it's that it's dangerous for children and youths to ride on the sidewalk, which might suggest that anti-sidewalk riding laws have it backward-- perhaps it should be illegal for young people to ride on the sidewalk and legal for adults. Of course, I'm being facetious because it's fairly evident that young, inexperienced riders are prone to a high accident rate, no matter where they ride. As one study concluded, forcing inexperienced riders to ride in the street won't necessarily lead to fewer accidents.

If sidewalk riding is so dangerous, why is it legal for young people to do it?

Anti-sidewalk riding laws are the wrong solution to the wrong problem, based on widely-accepted myths about the relative dangers.

A sidenote: Rather successful VC-ist anti-sidewalk riding propaganda campaigns promoting the myth (a.k.a. "the big lie") seem to come not so much directly from Forester (although there's no denying an indirect link to Forester) but from some of his zealous followers. I don't really care all that much but it is a little disappointing that some cyclists think that laws prohibiting bicycling are a good thing.

Hardly anyone speaks for sidewalk riders so when someone repeats the widely believed myth (or should I say 'big lie') that there exists somewhere some credible statistical evidence that sidewalk riding is inherently dangerous, it is rarely challenged.

OOPS! Statistics proving you wrong: Riding on the sidewalk is several more times more dangerous than riding in the street. (William Moritz, 1998) Another study says it's twice as dangerous. http://www.bicyclinglife.com/Library/riskfactors.htm


OK, there are statistics to back up the no-sidewalk crowd. Where are yours, JRA?

OOPS! Statistics proving you wrong: Riding on the sidewalk is several more times more dangerous than riding in the street. (William Moritz, 1998) Another study says it's twice as dangerous. http://www.bicyclinglife.com/Library/riskfactors.htm


OK, there are statistics to back up the no-sidewalk crowd. Where are yours, JRA?
The commentary with the cited "statistics" notes the weakness of any conclusion about risk drawn from statistics which do not include any measure of exposure:
"It is obviously not possible to conclude from these figures that older bicyclists or male bicyclists are at greater risk: the actual risks depend on the age and sex distribution of the bicyclist population that is exposed to potential accidents. For the same reason, it is impossible to draw any conclusions about the risks involved in bicycling with or against the direction of traffic, or on the roadway or the sidewalk, without knowing how many bicyclists in each category were exposed."

Your "statistics" don't mean a dang thing about relative risk of various travel modes without measuring the exposure rate for the cyclists, i.e what percentage of cyclists are riding on the sidewalk, and also fatally flawed because no consideration is given to the severity of injuries suffered in the accidents.

OK, there are statistics to back up the no-sidewalk crowd. Where are yours, JRA?

Pretty current, too :thumb:

Im very proud to have set a new record today for sidewalking !
From the area where Ocean Drive(north) meets US1 all the way southernly to Golfview Rd.
where I cut over just before the bridge.

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&q=north+palm+beach&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF-8&ll=26.835387,-80.062287&spn=0.009612,0.01929&t=h&z=16

No stops, no chopped terrain, no close passes. No distractions that made
the 'correct' side of US1 problematic.
My new route :thumb:

another myth of the VCers shot to hell

I enjoy riding my 28" wheel steel roadster down the sidewalk, pedaling as fast as I can.
It scares pedestrians.
Ha! Those walking fools!

It is illegal where I live and rightly so.

I will now avoid the usual back and forth that popularly erupts here (on the sticky reserved for this subject).

A story I've avoided publishing here: Last year, a regular (I'm not going to say "experienced") long-time commuter, well-known in the cycling community, for some unfathomable reason decided to take to the sidewalk on her regular commuting route. She became the zillionth victim of "the car" exiting a driveway, not expecting a cyclist to be zipping down the sidewalk from the wrong direction (roadwise).

She left behind a devastated husband and 3 young children. And a motorist who will no doubt never get over his part in this "accident."

She became the zillionth victim of "the car" exiting a driveway, not expecting a cyclist to be zipping down the sidewalk from the wrong direction

how many is a zillion? :rolleyes: compared to other cyclist fatalities, this is actually a relatively rare occurrence, eclipsed many times over by the number of fatalities from right and left hooks and doorings, for starters.

Your "statistics" don't mean a dang thing about relative risk of various travel modes without measuring the exposure rate for the cyclists, i.e what percentage of cyclists are riding on the sidewalk, and also fatally flawed because no consideration is given to the severity of injuries suffered in the accidents.


Bingo. Let's see... oh look, nine of then ten fatalities in this study in my hometown (http://www.toronto.ca/transportation/publications/bicycle_motor-vehicle/pdf/car-bike_collision_report.pdf) were cyclists on the road. Most of them were hit from behind by cars.

Strange, a lot of posters here keep repeating the mantra that this accident type "is very rare". Because kids scraping their knees on the sidewalk makes for better-sounding accident stats, so that's what we'll use.

On a more general note on sidewalk riding, an example of the local fustercluck on this issue can be found here (http://www.thestar.com/article/531574). That's right, electric motorbikes may be legal.

Bingo. Let's see... oh look, nine of then ten fatalities in this study in my hometown (http://www.toronto.ca/transportation/publications/bicycle_motor-vehicle/pdf/car-bike_collision_report.pdf) were cyclists on the road.

That's correct - most of them were reverse penny-farthings careening down staircases. ;)

-Kurt

OOPS! Statistics proving you wrong: Riding on the sidewalk is several more times more dangerous than riding in the street. (William Moritz, 1998)

Proving me wrong, eh?. Thanks for giving an example of the kind of statistical fantasies upon which the myth (a.k.a. the big lie) about the dangers of sidewalk riding are based.

In Moritz '98, which you claim proves me wrong, a small, non-representative group of bicyclists surveyed (all LAB members) almost never rode on the sidewalk (or, if they did, they didn't admit to it). To quote: "An 'Other' category appears in the present study and nearly all responses indicated this meant sidewalks. They accounted for just 0.3% of the kilometers ridden" (emphasis mine). Surveys are notoriously inaccurate anyway but, if anyone thinks conclusions can be drawn from that 0.3% sidewalk riding, they have a very imaginative way of interpreting statistics (studied under Forester, I guess). You could learn more (read "practically nothing") about the dangers of sidewalk riding by doing a Bike Forum poll.



Another study says it's twice as dangerous.
http://www.bicyclinglife.com/Library/riskfactors.htm

Now that depends on what brand of rose-colored glasses you wear when you read that study.

The study does show, as other studies have shown, that riding on the sidewalk against the direction of traffic (on the adjacent roadway) is considerably more dangerous than riding with traffic (with regard to accidents at intersections). We can nit pick the statistics and freak out over Simpson's paradox and all that fun stuff and argue about how to round and cherry pick numbers but I'd just as soon not (been there; see the sticky at the top of the forum). Wachtel and Lewiston do calculate a risk ratio of 1.8 to 1 (including 'wrong-way' riding) but note that, for same direction sidewalk-cycling, the calculated risk factor compared to roadway cycling turns out to be 1 to 1, which is pretty much what other studies show.

As others have pointed out, the preceeding ignores accident severity, which it makes no sense to ignore (although it may be the case that data is simply not available in a given study).



OK, there are statistics to back up the no-sidewalk crowd. Where are yours, JRA?

I'm not advocating unenforceable laws making a type of bicycling illegal, making a lot of bicyclists lawbreakers and calling it advocacy, so I feel no burden of proof.

I'd like to find some credible evidence that sidewalk riding is inherently more dangerous than riding on the roadway but years of searching and pouring over studies have yielded no such result. It seems that we have an accepted wisdom (that sidewalk riding is inherently more dangerous) that should be entered in the Myth America contest.

Bingo. Let's see... oh look, nine of then ten fatalities in this study in my hometown (http://www.toronto.ca/transportation/publications/bicycle_motor-vehicle/pdf/car-bike_collision_report.pdf) were cyclists on the road. Most of them were hit from behind by cars.


"Almost 30% of the cyclists involved in reported motor vehicle collisions were cycling on the sidewalk immediately prior to their collisions, making this the most frequent possible contributing factor."

Table II: Possible Contributing Factors
Factor Cases
Cyclist riding on sidewalk or crosswalk 629
Darkness/poor visibility 355
Child cyclist (inexperience) 132
Sight lines obstructed 72
Motorist improper/unsafe lane change 68
Cyclist passing on right 58
Cyclist disobeying traffic control 45
Cyclist on wrong side of road 43
Motorist misjudged passing space 37
Motorist disobeying traffic control 37
Motorist discharging passenger in left lane 22
Cyclist path obstructed 17
Vehicular assault 16
Mechanical defect (bicycle) 14
Streetcar tracks 14
Cyclist impaired 9
Poor/wet road surface 9
Motorist failed to detect cyclist 5
Motorist impaired 3

City of Toronto
Bicycle/Motor-Vehicle Collision Study
2003

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=bicyclist+killed&ie=UTF-8

I run that search every morning. Have been doing so for the past two or three months. Out of the hundreds of articles I've read, I still have yet to come across one where the bicyclist was killed while riding on the sidewalk. Every single article I've read has had to do with a bicyclist dying on the road.

Considering the fact that the majority of cyclists use the sidewalk, and not the road, but the majority of reported fatalities on Google news (read: every single one) involves cyclists being hit and dying on the road, it's interesting BFers are so eager to parrot the "sidewalk is more dangerous" meme in the face of actual life-and-death data. It's like a Critical Mass of Cognitive Dissonance.

You can point to statistics all day long about the sidewalk being more dangerous if that's what you need to justify your fear of using it, but if you've got the stomach to read about bicycle deaths for a couple of weeks, it'll become clear (if it wasn't before) that everyone is dying on the road.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=bicyclist+killed&ie=UTF-8

I run that search every morning. Have been doing so for the past two or three months. Out of the hundreds of articles I've read, I still have yet to come across one where the bicyclist was killed while riding on the sidewalk. Every single article I've read has had to do with a bicyclist dying on the road.

Considering the fact that the majority of cyclists use the sidewalk, and not the road, but the majority of reported fatalities on Google news (read: every single one) involves cyclists being hit and dying on the road, it's interesting BFers are so eager to parrot the "sidewalk is more dangerous" meme in the face of actual life-and-death data. It's like a Critical Mass of Cognitive Dissonance.

You can point to statistics all day long about the sidewalk being more dangerous if that's what you need to justify your fear of using it, but if you've got the stomach to read about bicycle deaths for a couple of weeks, it'll become clear (if it wasn't before) that everyone is dying on the road.

It comes down to one thing... appropriate speed for the conditions. Try to ride the local sidewalks at near 20MPH and you will have problems... but ride them at speeds of 6-10MPH and sidewalks can be used just fine.

No, cyclists don't often get killed on the pavement. Nor would they be at much risk riding their bikes around their dear old aunties living room. But that does not make it appropriate, civilized or sociable behavior.

the japanese have huge bicycle mode splits in their cities and practically everyone there rides on the sidewalk.

lots of sidewalk riding in cities like Barcelona as well.