Why are you still riding your bicycle on the sidewalk?

People who ride on the sidewalk do so primarily because they don't know how to ride safely in the road. Usually when they ride in the road they ride too far to the right and that invites dangerously close passes which understandably scares them.

If they learned to ride in a way that discourages dangerously close passes, they would feel much safer riding on the road.

Why are you still riding your bicycle on the sidewalk?

==who the @#@#$ are you anyway ?

i don;t

Riding your bicycle on the sidewalk is a dangerous activity. Even though pedestrians always have the right of way on a sidewalk with respect to bicycles, most people I encounter riding on the sidewalk are rude and inconsiderate as they weave in and out of the foot traffic.

==lecture mode

abuse of question/answer format

chat

Why not make a New Year's resolutions and learn to ride your bike properly where it belongs: in the road?

===ok why not

Additional Details

Just because it is legal doesn't mean it is a good idea.

blah

wle

Texas would have different legal guidelines than the place I reside but I see people using bikes on the sidewalk at all times. You're not even supposed to trip bikes on the road here. My roads don't seem to be 35-forty but nonetheless, you will have to be equipped to ride on the sidewalk. My town would not actually have a bicycle lane.

Where I live it's sort of suburban, there is very little foot traffic on the sidewalk. If the street has a bike lane, or if the breakdown or parking lane is empty, I'll use that. But if it's one lane each way and it's tight, I find cars pass me with inches to spare, and that's scary. So I use the sidewalk sometimes.

I agree, though, bikes have the very lowest right-of-way on the sidewalk. A woman with a stroller has the most right of way, then adult pedestrians, then children, then dogs and cats.

Surprise. The rules aren't the same everywhere. Riding bicycles on the sidewalks is legal in Virginia Beach and is actively encouraged. All generalizations are false (including this one).

HTH

On six lane 55 mph boulevards when the traffic is too dense to be able to jaywalk, the sidewalk is the only option. The rest of the time and places you can find me taking the lane and owning it while being as courteous to motorists as is prescribed by law and my good samaritan nature.

Riding in the street where I live is not safe.

I would only ride in the street if there were a special bike lane that was separated from the rest of the street with some kind of barrier.

I don't. End of discussion.