[pavel_lishin]

Honestly, this is why I do not ride my bike like I would drive my car. When I'm biking, I'm assuming there's a bounty on my head, so I stay on sidewalks, I wait to cross intersections until there's no cars that can hit me, etc.

Playing by the same rules as everyone else works fine if everyone plays by the same rules - but a lot of drivers don't.

[sophacles]

Get off the sidewalk. No matter what good you think you are doing, you are wrong. This only encourages people to ignore bicycles because they think "see bikes should be on the sidewalk".

Further, more injuries occur to cyclists on sidewalks than on roads. The sidewalk is narrow, so you have less escape route. Cars do not expect you on the sidewalk, so exit parking lots and driveways into you. Pedestrians, kids playing, and other hazards also appear without warning. Sidewalks are usually poorly maintained providing even more hazards.

[shade]

Yes.

I'd also add that in many cases, riding on the sidewalk is illegal. It doesn't bother me when I see little kids doing it, but if you're a grownup you should be riding on the street, with traffic, in accordance with traffic law.

When I still lived in a small rural "micropolitan" area before moving to Akron a few years back, I was a road rider and belonged to a local bike club. There is no way they would have tolerated members riding on the sidewalk, and they stressed heavily that bikes are legally regarded as vehicles and have to obey the same rules.

I've since given it up, since I live in a high traffic suburb of Akron and being deaf, can't hear oncoming traffic. This wasn't a big deal on rural back roads, but now that there's a lot more traffic around me, it makes me nervous.

[_delirium]

It's actually not illegal in most places. None of the 50 states have a blanket law prohibiting riding on sidewalks, so it's purely a matter of local law. It's illegal in some cities, not in others, and almost never in anything smaller than a metropolis.

Some states do have laws about what constitutes legally riding a bike on a sidewalk. For example, Oregon requires bicyclists to yield to pedestrians, and to generally go slowly, slowing down to walking speed when crossing a crosswalk or driveway: https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/814.410

Common practice seems to vary a lot by area. Riding a bike on the sidewalk in SF would be unsafe, unnecessary, and against city law, but in suburban and rural areas with high-speed-limit roads (~50-55 mph) without bike lanes or paved shoulders, but which do have sidewalks, it's quite unusual for people to ride in the road. In suburban Houston, for example, I would be really surprised to see a bike in the traffic lanes on something like Texas Hwy-3, but it's not that uncommon to see bikes on the sidewalk.

[uxp]

Utah does have a blanket law for riding on sidewalks or pedestrian pathways, though it is not expressed deliberately.

The only exceptions to a person riding on the sidewalk is if the road does not have approved bicycle lanes, or the person is in a group with special permits, or the road is physically unfit for travel. As of the last 4 years, every paved road, with the exceptions of interstates, were approved for bicycle travel, even if they do not have designated bicycle lanes.

http://www.rules.utah.gov/publicat/code/r805/r805-001.htm

Granted, one may argue that any road is unfit for bicycle travel if the speed limit is 55 MPH or so, but you must prove in court how the entire road is unfit, which requires just as much effort as the DOT requires to gain permission to re-pave the surface from a graded dirt base.

[enjo]

I'll second this. A very common bike accident scenario involves a bike on a sidewalk on a busy street. The driver turning left is only looking at the two lanes of traffic. A biker crossing on a sidewalk moves so fast that the car will often not account for him. Be on the road and be visible.

[chaosmachine]

I got hit this way by a woman in a BMW a few years ago. I don't ride on sidewalks anymore :)

[pavel_lishin]

When I ride on the sidewalk, any time I approach any sort of driveway where a car might be turning, I make sure there's none approaching that could potentially turn into it.

Also, I live in Dallas - we don't really have sidewalk traffic. Every time I ride my bike, I can count on one hand the number of people I see pedesting.

[mseebach]

> Also, I live in Dallas - we don't really have sidewalk traffic. Every time I ride my bike, I can count on one hand the number of people I see pedesting.

Also, someone else lives in Dallas. Every time he drives his car, he can count on one hand the number of people he sees cycling. He uses that fact to justify driving in a manner menacing to cyclists.

[pavel_lishin]

I live in Dallas - it's not a bike friendly area. Cars already ignore bicycles. I'm interested in protecting myself RIGHT NOW when I'm riding, not at some point in the future after I've educated everyone on the road.

And I'm familiar with the hazards of being on the sidewalk. Dallas isn't a place where people walk - I can count on one hand the number of pedestrians I see. When I approach some sort of intersection-like area where a car could be, I make sure a car isn't approaching, etc., etc.

I literally bike like everyone is out to kill me.

[sophacles]

I have found the best remedy for unfriendly drivers is to bike more aggressively. This is non-intuitive, but works. If drivers are not politely giving you room or consideration, drive in the middle of the lane. Go slow and wave politely when they scream, honk or whatever at you. They may be dumb, but know they can't get away with "I didn't see him" when you are causing a scene.

The nuances of how to do this well depend on rules of the road for your state, but it generally works very well.

No matter what you feel, the data shows that you're estimates and approach to safety in this case are just plain wrong.

[davepeck]

I once saw a level of aggression both hilarious and frightening.

In 2001 I was biking Market Street to downtown SFO. Agro Biker, several hundred feet in front of me, was heading straight through a green light. That didn't stop Stupid SUV from rushing to turn right, nearly causing Agro Biker to t-bone.

In response Agro calmly reached into his messenger bag, pulled out what I can only describe as a smoke grenade, and lobbed it at Stupid SUV's rear window. Direct hit. Shock and awe filled the streets!

[raystar]

While I do not condone what Agro Biker did, I did chuckle slightly.

[jbillingsley]

I think the best thing for bicyclists to do is avoid main roads with a speed limit over 35 mph. You give yourself a better chance of being noticed by automobiles if your rate of speed is closer to theirs.

The last thing you want to do is be a nuisance, all it takes is one unhinged, rageaholic to end your life for a very stupid reason.

[pavel_lishin]

"it works" to accomplish what?

I can't make a scene or get in the middle of the lane when I'm dead. And at best, I'd be affecting a few drivers a day by yelling at them. Maybe I'd educate some of them. The rest would just conclude that bicyclists are assholes, and every dead one is a net benefit.

Like I said in a different comment, I'll take my paranoid safety now instead of a possible payoff later.

[sophacles]

What it accomplishes is this: The car drivers can no longer try to sneak around you when you are in the middle of the road. By taking up the whole lane, you are forcing them to acknowledge you.

Aside from all of this: your intuition is wrong. Please look at the statistics. The only disagreement in the statistics is over how much safer riding in the street is. There is no disagreement over street riding being safer.

I am certain this is a case of perception coupled with confirmation bias, much like those who would prefer to drive than to fly. Find a local cycling club to teach you tips on cycling safely around your metro.

[jrockway]

+1 on this thread.

I've never had a problem driving my bike like a car. Sure, sometimes someone honks at me or yells, but that's what your middle finger is for. As soon as someone is mad enough to yell at you, you know they see you, and you know you're safe. It's the people that don't notice you that will kill you.

(Of course, there is the 1-in-a-million homicidal maniac that just wants to murder something for the fun of it... but that's something that you can't prevent -- bicycle or not.)

[vimalg2]

I agree with this.

And I ride in Trivandrum, a city in South India with aggressive drivers who get mad when they have to slow down and get caught in the really intense sun, minus air-con. (I've noticed a lot of middle-class folk here save on fuel by skipping air conditioning in city snarls)

Never ride on pavements.

Never ride on the edge/shoulder especially in India where a 'shoulder slip' could easily leave you with a broken neck.

Never ride near the dividing line.

Ride in the 1/3 of the road that lets you spot and recover from surprises served up by pedestrians AND Learn cross-steering if you ride fast on a road bike.

Being visible and noticed early-on is the key to survival.

Being 'in their face' is an effective way to stay alive.

[Tichy]

I tend to cycle more towards the middle of the road, too. It seems better to me if the driver has to make a conscious effort to overtake me, rather than thinking "this might just fit" and pushing me into the parked cars. It all depends on the car, too. If a bus is crawling up behind me, I might just stop on the sidewalk until it has passed me.

However, I don't really know the driver's perspective.

There was also a guy who experimented with wearing a bicycle helmet finding that drivers would leave less distance when overtaking him when he wore the helmet. Apparently they assumed he was a more skilled cyclist because of the helmet.

[awolf]

Still, I agree with the parent commentor: you've gotta get off the sidewalk.

Bicycles are vehicles. Sidewalks are not a place for vehicles. It's not fair to pedestrians or yourself. Also if anything were to happen while you were riding on the sidewalk I believe it would be you that would be at fault.

[dejb]

> Further, more injuries occur to cyclists on sidewalks than on roads.

What type of injuries though? And is this in any way biased by the fact the young or inexperienced riders are more likely to be using the sidewalk. On the sidewalk you'd expect inexperienced riders who do not cover much distance to be having a lot of small scale accidents. On the road you'd expect experienced riders who cover a lot of distance to be having fewer accidents (per mile, hour, rider?) but are significantly more serious on average.

I'd personally want to see more evidence before overriding my natural instincts that many busy roads are often just not worth it. As much as I admire those 'road warriors' who are educating drivers this is one of those situations where I have to put me first.

[pyre]

It also depends on your speed on the sidewalk. The faster that you speed down the sidewalk, the more risk you put yourself at of running into people pulling out of drives (or making turns on the road when you speed out into the crosswalk) just because they are not used to something that fast being on the sidewalk (you don't see people walking at the same speed that you can be zipping around on your bike).

[peterwwillis]

I completely agree that you should not ride on the sidewalk. It's much safer to ride where cars are looking: the road. Wave, use your lights, anything to get people's attention, and assume the cars do not see you.

However. If it's night time, and i'm riding up a busy 45mph street with no bike lane, you bet your ass i'm riding the sidewalk. I'll be paranoid and stop at every single vehicle or pedestrian crossing, but i'll ride the sidewalk. I know the kinds of people that drive these streets, and I know it only takes one asshole veering 12 inches into the side of the road to send me flying at a pole and potentially back into traffic.

Drunk drivers, drivers on cellphones, people not watching the road, people looking for loose change in the glove box, or just freak accidents. Any single event could kill you on a bike. Where I live we don't have the luxury of taking up a whole lane of traffic to bike safely - if you do, the least you get is harassed (horns, trash thrown at you, threats). If they're driving an expensive car you're more likely to get run out of the lane because they know they own all the lanes.

[artlogic]

I can't agree with you more.

One thing I have not seen mentioned is that cyclists are effectively INVISIBLE to cars when on sidewalks due to their speed. I work on a college campus and have watched motorists tune out sidewalk cyclists on a number of occasions - they aren't tracking objects moving faster than a pedestrian. On two of those occasions, the cyclists were hit - one was taken away in an ambulance with head injuries. Any near collision I've had has involved a pedestrian walkway of some sort.

As a cyclist your highest priority is to be seen. It's much harder to ignore a cyclist riding in the road.

[pcarmichael]

Completely agree on riding like you're a target. I ride according to the law and also as if I'm invisible to drivers. That paranoia has definitely kept me out of an accident several times.

One thing though - and it may seem counter-intuitive - is that riding on sidewalks is considerably more dangerous. I believe a 1985(?) study showed that it was roughly twice as dangerous, and another study (1998?) also showed an increase in risk. Granted there are always exceptions, but on average you're better off on the road.

[Someone]

Yes, you should ride as if you are a target, but at the same time you should also somewhat ride as if you own the road, because that increases your visibility. The challenge is the proper mixing of the two.

[electromagnetic]

The problem is that in areas where bicycles are required by law to be on the roadway, they're squeezing the cyclists into a very narrow strip of the roadway where all vehicles turn through.

Cyclists should be riding in the middle of the road, like you said, like they own it and force drivers to take notice. However, this is likely to increase road rage and increase the risk of non-accidental cyclist injuries.

I know where I lived in the UK I was legally obligated to be on the sidewalk as a cyclist. By the local road layouts, I actually found it safer, because the sidewalks and junctions were made with pedestrians and cyclists in mind, not just motorists.

What I believe was the most beneficial was no anti-J-walking law. It seems bizarre, but because of the rural nature of the area, I could cross the road in the middle of downtown on a busy street and people would have to yield right of way to me a pedestrian, which made all pedestrians and cyclists more visible to motorists because they had to routinely watch for us.

[reneherse]

I sympathize with both your sidewalk-borne POV and those who are vehemently opposed to it.

Unfortunately, bicycle safety is not primarily a behavioral issue, but a structural one. Road and sidewalk etiquette are important, but these territorial disputes between car, bicycle, and pedestrian are inherently unsolvable. Cyclists, being neither heavy fast steel nor slow moving soft tissue, really belong on neither road nor sidewalk.

A different layer of infrastructure is needed to really solve the problem, but unfortunately such a layer doesn't easily retrofit to existing US cities. Even dedicated bike lanes along existing roadways can be an overly compromised and unsafe solution, for instance when they are bordered by a line of parked cars, doors just waiting to be opened in front of the cyclist.

As much as I love all things bicycle-related, it's for these reasons that I believe cycling as transportation will always remain a niche activity in the US.

For me, riding near traffic requires zen-master focus, alternating between the attitudes of assertiveness and invisibility. I view the sidewalk as a tool to be used when appropriate, e.g. when there are few pedestrians and vehicular traffic is murderous.

[ahi]

I absolutely hate bike lanes. The city I live in prides itself on being bike friendly, partly because of all of its bike lanes, but all the bike lanes are just painted onto sections of roads that have wide enough shoulders that they are completely unnecessary. A lot of them just stop for a couple hundred feet because they ran out of shoulder and the bike lane was an after thought. So now I have useless bike lanes and drivers yelling at me for riding my bike in the street where there isn't a bike lane.

[pyre]

True, but people that swerve into the bike lanes (where they exist) are performing a road rules no-no in that they have not stayed within their lines. 'Peer pressure' is for drivers to stay out of the bike lanes, so where bike lanes do exist, there is a bit of a layer of protection vs. just a large shoulder.

[pkulak]

When I pull out of my driveway, I look each way down the sidewalk for pedestrians. My visibility is not far enough for anything moving faster than that. Then, I stop at the road where I can see much farther down and yield to vehicles. If you're riding on the sidewalk when I'm pulling out, you'll probably do a header over my car, and get a bill for my bodywork.

[BrandonM]

I was riding on the sidewalk in San Francisco along a pretty busy road once. If I was around anyone, I was slowing to a crawl. One guy -- a total stranger (no one else was around) -- stepped right in front of me, stopping me to tell me that riding on the sidewalk is illegal and then giving me an impromptu lecture, something about a woman being killed or seriously injured by a cyclist while crossing the Golden Gate bridge. (I later crossed the Golden Gate bridge... one side was clearly for pedestrians with the other side clearly for cyclists, so that left me somewhat confused.)

When I got home, I confirmed that biking on the sidewalk in San Francisco is in fact illegal. While I highly doubt it would be enforced for someone who was riding as I was (at a pretty slow-to-normal pace, and slowing to a crawl when around pedestrians), it's still frustrating to see how bicycle-unfriendly even the decent biking cities in the US are.

[ryanelkins]

Maybe it's not so much bicycle unfriendly as pedestrian friendly, although other people in this thread have noted that sidewalks are more dangerous than roads for cyclists. It is hard for cyclists - treading that line between pedestrians and automobiles without a truly dedicated place to operate usually.

[ahi]

It's enforced in DC, although I suspect it's partly because of the absurd numbers of bike messengers who would use sidewalks as obstacle courses. On the other hand, I think riding in the road in DC is relatively safe because there are so many bike messengers. Most drivers learn to drive cautiously when sharing the road with cyclists who are fast, aggressive, and potentially dangerous if cut off.

[qwzybug]

Biking in DC is insanely dangerous, and the cyclists here are some of the worst I have ever seen. There is some kind of massive and fundamental lack of recognition that they should at least try to follow some of the traffic laws, sometimes, if they want to be taken even a little bit seriously. More than once I've nearly been taken out by a cyclist who wasn't expecting me to do something crazy and unpredictable, like stop at a red light or yield to pedestrians.

If you expect drivers to yield to you, give you your lane, and (most importantly) not actively work to bring about your death, you can't be weaving in and out of traffic, running red lights, or not letting cars through to turn at intersections. Even if you don't give half a damn about your own life, it's just simple courtesy.

In general, people on bicycles in DC combine the worst parts of the "urban road warrior" cyclist stereotype with the intense sense of entitlement and privilege shared by most in the DC area: "why the fuck should I stop at a red light? I have places to be. I saw David Axelrod at Ruth's Chris yesterday. Do you know who the fuck I am?"

The drivers are insane as well, but I want to grab most of the cyclists I see around here by the shoulders and shake them hard: "Do you want to die??!? DO YOU??!!!?" They are just the worst and sicken me deeply every day.

Disclaimer: I am a frequent cyclist in DC.

[ahi]

Cycling anywhere in the US is dangerous. However, I think many people mistake the feeling of danger for actual risk. DC cyclists make drivers incredibly uncomfortable, which means they are paying attention. As a cyclist, it's better for drivers to be cursing you than to not see you. Not that that's an excuse for not stopping at red lights.

[cap10morgan]

Hippie.

[ultraviolence99]

GET OFF THE ROAD

[qwzybug]

I'm not sure how to take that.

[kevindication]

In DC it's only illegal to ride on the sidewalks in a very specific, downtown business district that's marked by a lot of pedestrian traffic.

I wouldn't say it's all that safe on the street in DC. I've very nearly been run over by cars (especially cabs) that want to turn right out of a circle (which even has a bike lane).

[kevindication]

Wow, down-voted for providing some first hand information? Maybe there are some angry drivers reading this.

[enf]

San Francisco was prevented for several years from making any bicycle-related improvements to any streets because of a lawsuit filed by Rob Anderson. The injunction has finally been lifted and the city is now working through the backlog of long-planned bike projects.

[lallysingh]

For other reasons altogether, a common motorcycling motto is "ride it like you stole it."

I spent some time commuting on a motorcycle through some heavy traffic. Going through intersections, the rule is to have another car go with you at the same time to act as cover.

[VladRussian]

second the call - "Get off the sidewalk". B!itching about car menace to bikes while being yourself menace to pedestrians.