Originally Posted by
JohnJ80
But the big thing he was putting forward was it it more dangerous to ride on the sidewalk or on the road. Which this study absolutely doesn't say.
What also he doesn't note is how much safer it is becoming in terms of fatalities. Number of fatalities is almost cut in half from 1975 to 2009 yet the number of bicycles sold every year runs to about 18-20 million units. Presuming that they don't get thrown away, that is a lot of people on a lot of bicycles and is probably increasing. But even it the number of cyclists stays constant, it is still getting a lot safer to ride on the road then (can be inferred). Unless, of course, one presumes that people are continuing to buy bicycles at the rate of 20 million per year and then ceasing to ride them. Pretty low rate of fatality either way.
I guess if he is this worried about it, and doesn't understand the statistics, he probably shouldn't ride on the sidewalk either.
J.
From the studies he's presented, you can't really come up with any conclusions about the safety of riding on a sidewalk vs on the streets. I agree with that.
I think it really just boils down to this: If you understand the risks of riding on the sidewalk and take steps to mitigate them, then it can be more safe than riding on the street. To me this means basically getting off the bike at every driveway and street crossing.
There are other occasions when riding on the sidewalk is safer than being on the street. There's a sidewalk near my house that runs along the border of a golf course uninterrupted for about 1/2 mile. I would argue that taking that sidewalk instead of the street running parallel to it is safer, though neither are particularly dangerous. It's not safer for the pedestrians I may encounter and it's always possible that I may get hit by a stray golfball.
There are streets that are particularly dangerous for various reasons for cyclists and there may or may not be sidewalks nearby that are safer. The problem with all the studies is that they don't take into consideration local conditions. I can ride all the way to my job on streets where the speed limit doesn't exceed 30 mph and where the drivers are used to sharing the roads with cyclists and pedestrians. It's not like that everywhere.