| It's legal in only half the country and its stupid everywhere. "The overall crash rate for cyclists was 0.29 per 1000 cycled kilometres and 6.1 per 1000 cycled hours. The crash rate for cyclists riding on pedestrian paths was 26.4 per 1000 h, which was considerably greater than other road environments. For example, the risk was 8.8 on shared pedestrian and bicycle paths, 5.8 on cycle lanes and 4.7 on roads." https://etrr.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12544-021-00... I understand it may be preferable from the cyclists perspective to injure a pedestrian rather than risk getting hit by a car but your unilaterally risking them to procure a benefit for your self. Morally you are fucking them. Furthermore some are more vulnerable to serious or permanent injury than others and they don't have an option not to be on a sidewalk especially in the city. If you have access to a car and are cycling for your health or to achieve a warm fuzzy for saving the earth and hypothetical and mostly fictional people while actually risking, injuring, or killing existing people because actually biking on the street is too dangerous you should probably bike on the street like an adult or turn the key in your car. |
I'm amazed that whoever cooked up this figure is sure it isn't 26.3 or 26.5.
(I suspect that riding on the sidewalk is unsafe, at least serious riding by grownups; not four-year-olds on kid bikes. I just don't believe there is any way to obtain this sort of figure.)