Originally Posted by
Juan Foote
According to a quick search, it is illegal to ride on the sidewalk here (in GA) over the age of 12. Otherwise cyclists are expected to adhere to the same rights and responsibilities on public roads as motorized vehicles.
I know this is a bit of a side to the topic at hand...The aspect that I hate about not being "sure" of the legality and the lack of enforcement is that how often you see it used as a fishing tactic for police to pull someone that is otherwise doing nothing, but suspicious enough for them to 'want a reason'. I see this manner of crud on those TV police shows and it sort of burns my hiney that we call ourselves free and yet have to put up with **** like that.
Good point.
Any selectively enforced regulation lends itself to pretextual stops. It's why Seattle did away with its helmet mandate.
Another point--did you know that sidewalk riding was illegal in GA before you googled it? Do people do it anyway? There's this sort of zen question that comes up frequently in the legal world--if there's a law that is universally ignored, is it really a law at all?
I think the bigger question is whether it matters whether it's legal or not. I do almost all my riding in 2 states, MA and NH. Sidewalk riding is legal in MA and illegal in NH, and I think I see more people riding on the sidewalks in the NH city live in than anywhere in MA, excluding campuses. MA has a few of those.