chephy

+1. If it's a long stretch of sidewalk along, say, a park, with no driveways and intersections, it's not bad safety-wise. But if you have driveways and intersections, it's completely different. In order to be safe, you'd have to slow down to a ped speed or lower (because you don't quite have the manoeuvrability of a pedestrian) at every driveway or intersection, which will get very old very fast. Also, the weaving on and off the sidewalk is itself unpredictable.

If you don't pay attention to anything anyone says and only base things on your experiences and what is working for you, you'll have no chance to learn from others' mistakes, only from your own. And cycling mistakes are often painful. I know more than one person who thought that sidewalk cycling in an area with lots of little plazas (and thus driveways) was the safest thing and was "working for them". Until they collided with moving metal objects.

I-Like-To-Bike

You seem to be operating under the assumption that the advice about what is safe or not is being offered by people who know what they are talking about. My opinion, based on the unsubstantiated conventional wisdom bandied about on BF about cycling safety and relative risk, is that most BF brand experts on cycling safety are just parroting the conventional wisdom they "experienced" elsewhere on the Internet.

chephy

That is silly. How dumb do you have be to assume that strangers on the internet know what they are talking about? The assumption I am operating on is that reasonable people will solicit advice, receive it, think about it, evaluate it, and then decide to what extent it makes sense and whether it's applicable to their situation. Ultimately you are the one experiencing your life, so it all comes back to observing your own environment (in this case, cycling environment), but reading what others have to say about it may help you look at your experiences from a different angle and realize some potential consequences you haven't thought about before. Or it may help you try out a strategy you didn't realize was possible, and that may produce entirely different experiences, which you can then evaluate for yourself.

You, on the other hand, seem to be operating on the assumption that people will blindly follow whatever orders they are given, and the only way to prevent that is to give them an order to disregard other orders.

Finally, as a long-time BF-er I disagree with your evaluation of the knowledge and wisdom of people here. There is a ton of combined experience here, many millions of miles ridden in all sorts of conditions, and lots and lots of useful strategies (of course there is also lots of garbage, but that's why you need to keep your brain turned on when reading). In this very thread neil gave a good quick summary of why sidewalks are dangerous. Notice, too, that he did not just say "they are dangerous and real cyclists never ride on them!", but gave a reason as to what exactly is dangerous about them and how you can get creamed riding there. This is something that many new riders do not think about (intersections and driveways), yet something that definitely makes sense once you do think about it. No doubt that's a useful thing to point out to someone contemplating sidewalk riding, and certainly it neither precludes nor discourages thinking about how it applies in that actual rider's environment - just the opposite.

On the other hand, what did *you* have to contribute, other than an advice to use one's own brain? Everyone who has a brain already does that anyway, and everyone who lacks one is obviously incapable of doing so, so your advice is wasted either way.

In fact, it's worse than wasted. It is misleading, because it's suggesting that there is nothing other than your own personal observations that can help you decide what's good and what's bad for you. God forbid you try to find out what others might think about it and then use that additional info to your advantage. Oh no, you're clearly too stupid to decide whether what they say makes sense or not, so you must not listen to anything anyone says because they might say something wrong and you might believe it because they said it with such conviction! Well, gee, if you are that stupid, then you're certainly too stupid to figure out what works for you without anyone's input! (The "you" in this paragraph is obviously not "you, ILTB", but the generalized "you, reader of BF asking for advice".)

AlmostTrick

^^^Good points. Not bad for a stranger on the internet!

danarnold

Skipping past a lot of posts and going back to the OP, these conversations present opportunities for us to diplomatically explain our point of view and the rights of bicyclists. It's hard for those of us who like to fight, but it's prob'ly more productive to win a convert to the rights of cyclists on the road.

Not very good at this myself, but being forewarned is an advantage. We could say something like 'I understand the frustration of being slowed by a bicycle. The reason we ride in the middle of the lane sometimes is....'

danarnold

+ 1

mikewille

Seems like there just might be a few gems hidden in this thread
amongst the recently flung--oops, got some on my shoe!

igknighted

Until you can get most (or at least a sizable percentage) of cyclists to understand where to ride (with traffic, off the sidewalk, taking the lane when necessary, etc.), expecting motorists who may have never been on a bike in their life to expect this behaviour from cyclists is futile. Right now, the cyclist riding properly is the aberration. Until that changes, they will always be seen as rogues by drivers.

danarnold

We all do what we can to educate motorists and our fellow cyclists and to learn from them. Simply riding competently in traffic is a good advertisement. My experience is that 99% of motorists are considerate when I ride so I'm fairly hopeful.

fredgarvin7

And to think that certain folks here acuse ME of going on rants! This thread has rants that I would -sho-nuff! -be proud to own. Physicians: heal thyselves.

huhenio

I work at a BMW dealership.

I almost got creamed by our customers more than once.

The service manager says that they will be invited to my funeral if they run me over.