It's good that you and your bike were undamaged, but the motorist was correct and you were in the wrong here. On those types of roads you should be riding in the roadway if you are going to travel at speed. If you are going to ride on the sidewalk you need to move slowly (at a pedestrian pace) and be prepared to yield your right of way for ANYONE.

Down hill....

OP, frankly you can't expect a whole lot of sympathy with a thread of this nature. It's pretty weak sauce. You gotta do better.


Guys, stop pestering OP, please. Just go find a better thread . . . which shouldn't be real hard actually.

I think we should reserve a special category of the Darwin Award for cyclists who ride on a sidewalk unless it is ABSOLUTELY necessary. It is illegal to do so in a business district where I live. If there is so much traffic on the main road you must use a sidewalk then it is simply too unsafe to ride there. Riding the sidewalk is worse because motorists are not expecting you to be coming at them from the side faster than a pedestrian. I always tell people who insist on riding on the sidewalk to consider themselves to be invisible to motorists. It might save their life. The other Darwin Award category should be for those who ride on the wrong side of the road. It is another of my pet peeves, particularly when they are coming right at me in a bike lane. I refuse to move left.

I think you just nailed the point here. You are actually yelling at yourself because YOU would have died because YOU almost hit the car because YOU were riding up to a blind driveway extremely fast and unsafely on a sideWALK instead of the road where you belonged. If that is the case good job for recognizing your mistake so that you won't put yourself at risk in the future.

BTW if you had hit the car there is a good chance you would be responsible for paying for the damage because of your reckless operation. I bet you would really hate those cops.

The guy was obviously a jerk for yelling at you instead of asking if you were alright, but that doesn't make anything (other than your hurt feelings) his fault.

Life is full of risks. You have seen with your own eyes that cycling on a sidewalk has risks. I usually ride rail trails lately, but I rode 32 miles on roads Sunday, and I crashed because of a mistake I made involving a road hazard (no cars involved)... so, it was obviously a risk. However, it was still safer than riding on a sidewalk. I had cars give me plenty of room when they passed, and a few slowed down to stay behind me at a safe distance when I had to take the middle of the lane due to pot holes in the right side of the road. I even had someone in a car stop to make sure I was ok when I fell. I did use the sidewalk once... when the hill was too steep, and I walked for a while (you see what I did there? I emphasized walk...).

Don't get me wrong, over the years I have had issues with jerks on the road, and I have had a few close calls with inattentive drivers. My youngest brother died alone at the side of a road after the driver that hit him drove away... But, none of this makes cycling on sidewalks safe.

We do have to manage our risks... but that also means that you should consider the risk you saw with your own eyes, the one that the driver and I have pointed out to you.

Oh my god yes, how I hate the salmon. I also hold my line when they are coming although I make an exception for children (because children) and old people (because wasn't that what they used to teach people?) I seem to recall as a child being told by a police officer to always ride against traffic.

well i got all my bike stuff to handle my life and by being able to do stuff myself and this makes me upset..
Urban biking is hell

Sooooooo, you learned to not ride on sidewalks ---- now get on with life............. Don't sweat the small stuff, and have fun!

Cars can't see you nor expect you riding fast on the sidewalk. Between the fences and bushes they can't see you. Take the LANE sometimes. I have pedaled in OOB and Portland, much nicer drivers than in MA.

Can't find this..mind sharing the link or the thread title?

It got sent to the prison camp that is P&R.

Moved from General Cycling to A&S.

If anyone else is curious about the north korean thread...

http://www.bikeforums.net/politics-r...n-cycling.html

There's a lot of sub forums...

Trade your current bike in for one with brakes. And when you go downhill on a sidewalk, use them.

I have brakes... You push your foot down

A rear wheel only coaster brake is not very effective. Most of your stopping power comes from a front brake.

Riding fast on sidewalks is unsafe, the emphasis on fast. They can be a good option if done intelligently.

Only half right, the motorist was required (by most state laws if not all) to stop short of the sidewalk and only proceed after yielding.

Sorry, Casio, you won't get any sympathy here.

As the driver said, sidewalks are for walking, and bicycles belong on the road, or in designated bike lanes. In backing out the driver is looking for pedestrians, and gauging his vision based on expectations of their speed. You were going much faster than a pedestrian (even a running one) and were probably well beyond the drivers line of sight as he started across the sidewalk.

In most cases of sidewalks with curbside parking, drivers back out of driveways in two steps. The first is to back across the sidewalk while looking for pedestrians while not extending beyond the shelter of the parked cars. This leaves them blocking the sidewalk, while they look for an opening to pull into the road.

I don't know Maine law, but here in NYS, you would have been at fault and responsible to damage to his car if you hit him. Sometime back we had someone from Denver have a similar accident and get cited by the police for the infraction.

he was driving forward... And i am not 100% clear if it was a driveway or a street... Googley street view time..

Its a street!!!!

http://i.imgur.com/gwmSNEz.png

While I'm not against riding on sidewalks under certain conditions, that looks like its the worst possible choice there.

Or...If you ride your bike on the sidewalk, REALIZE that you have lost/given up your right of way at all intersections, driveways, and crosswalks. What you experienced will happen again and again if you do not alter your cycling behavior on sidewalks. It does not even matter who is right or wrong here, you will experience the same bad things over and over.

You could not pay me to ride at greater than 2 mph on that sidewalk, view of drivers is blocked from both direction. Yea, driver is obligated to stop before sidewalk, but the chance of that happening is small, and risk is high.

Probably better in drnk, where they cannot afford cars.