Originally Posted by
Clyde1820
What can be said is, really, the danger rests in the hands of ridiculous, mindless, and/or inattentive drivers or riders. Those who occupy a lane safely, and who remain attentive to other occupants and conscious of overtaking speeds and proximity, aren't the problem.
One irrefutable fact, though, is that the speeds and mass differentials that exist on a vehicle roadway far outstrip any sidewalk or path with a person on a bike. True, in any situation where someone strikes another blindly, injury or even death is possible. But, depending on the situation, there's no getting around the fact of risk ... whenever traveling with others around.
Myself, I choose to avoid a handful of truly ugly and deadly-dangerous spots in the town where I live. Wherever possible, in those zones, I head off-pavement to a sidewalk or an alternative nearby route. And it's decidedly safer, at least from the standpoint of avoidance of a 4000+ pound vehicle impact and avoidance of tangling with a pedestrian (given my cautious overtaking speeds). But on roadways where car drivers are mindful of the fact others exist in such lanes along with them, I'm completely willing to occupy such lanes per design.
People should decide for themselves, situation dependent. The threat isn't from the average lane occupant (path or roadway); it's from the ones who drive or ride wantonly. Laws criminalizing any and all use of safer routes are misplaced. Again, situation dependent, as clearly not all paths are safe for cyclists to use at all times and situations. Would be insanity to attempt it in NYC at, say, lunch hour. By comparison, it's reasonable and commonplace at some spots near where I live, given the relative lack of alternatives and relative rarity of pedestrians or others on such paths.
I absolutely disagree with a lot of this--you don't take account of sight lines in any of this, and you can't just lump in paths with sidewalks. They're absolutely not equivalent.
I don't make blanket statements about sidewalk vs. road safety because local conditions can vary, but I think there's little or no reason to assume that you're less likely to get hit by a car if you're sidewalk riding despite what our intuitions might be. Despite what you say about weight differential being "irrefutable", the notion that you aren't likely to encounter motor vehicles while sidewalk riding is ludicrous. Simply put, you cross driveways and intersections whether or not you're primarily on a road, and in an urban environment (which is where there is likely to be a sidewalk to ride on), those crossings are by far the places where you are most likely to get hit by a motor vehicle, Where I live, being on a sidewalk most likely puts the cyclist at a point of the driveway exit that's worse for visibility than in the street, and that's certainly the case for intersections where I'd be much less visible to a car turning right.
Again, I'm not making a blanket statement about never riding on sidewalk, I'm just saying that your characterization of people who consider these factors as "nay-sayers" is inappropriate and highly misleading.