Originally Posted by
gshastings
Agreed. Even walking on the sidewalk, with your back to oncoming traffic, is stupid. Walk on the other side of the road, facing oncoming traffic (if sidewalks and other factors are conducive).
Without crunching numbers, I think this is likely terrible advice. If you have to cross the street to get to the sidewalk "going the other way", you must have at least negated any minuscule gain in safety you could gain by having a little more notice of the highly unlikely event of the car coming careening down the sidewalk.