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Someone gets killed by a car, so they restrict e-bikes.
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this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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Mildly Infuriating
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One of the many reasons you don't ride anything on the sidewalk is that you cross driveways and crosswalks too quickly to be seen by drivers. Even a standard bike should be ridden in the road, because 15 mph is fast enough to "come out of nowhere" and be hit by a car. All bikes are road vehicles.
I always ride on the side walk if there is one. I'd rather get hit by someone backing up at 5mph than someone going down the road at 50mph. And I'm always watching driveways for cars backing up.
It's not about cars backing out of residential driveways; it's about cars turning onto side streets and it happens at a lot more than 5 MPH.
Cyclists being rear-ended (at 50 MPH or otherwise) while riding in the street is much less likely to happen than them being t-boned while riding on the sidewalk. You have to factor the probability into the risk, not just the severity.
I have mirrors, so I check behind me for cars turning right and I can see oncoming traffic for cars turning left.
My primary concern is the severity. I feel way less safe riding in the street. All it takes is a semi-truck swerving a few feet, a drunk driver not paying attention, or someone looking at their phone at the wrong moment and it's game over for me. The stretch of my commute that I have to share the road with cars is the worst part and if I had to do that the whole way I simply wouldn't cycle anymore.
The real problem is a lack of bike infrastructure, but until that is resolved I'm going to ride where I feel safe and that is as far away from cars as possible. And I'm not on an ebike, just a regular one. I only go 10-15 mph.
You are less safe for this. You think otherwise, but you’re wrong. Sidewalk. Side. Walk.
Pavement. Pave. Ment. Ment for paves
I LOLed
Less safe how?
It's because you're exactly in their blind spot. If they're on the street and you're on the sidewalk next to them. They'll run you over at the next junction, as it has happened in this case. It's always right turns and things to the side of cars. And you'll be exactly there when cycling on the sidewalk.
Additionally car drivers don't anticipate fast moving things on the sidewalk. They'll have a quick glance at the sidewalk directly before and after the junction. Because a pedestrian can only move so far in the time until they made the turn. Then they'll watch out for other traffic on the street, signals and so on. In the meantime you'll emerge out of nowhere on the pavement, moving at 5x the speed of anything that's anticipated to be there and that's going to be a problem.
I don't know how it's in the US. But generally you should just cycle in plain sight directly infront of them on the road. It's difficult to miss that.
When cycling (and driving tbh) I assume everyone's an idiot and they're going to hit me until proven otherwise. I don't cross a street at full speed and assume everyone's going to see me. I make eye contact and don't cross unless they see me and start slowing down.
Cycling directly infront of cars seems like the optimal way to generate road rage, impede traffic, and endanger your own life.
For the better part of the past 25 years I've been bicycling primarily in US cities. The only time I've been hit by a car was when I was on the sidewalk. Long story short, I thought we had made eye contact, but I think they didn't see me because I was moving quicker than a pedestrian would.
I've never really felt unsafe, except for maybe in Texas where pickups would cut way too close to me. But I learned to take a whole lane, which is my right, when there were multiple lanes.
In your defense, now I live in a dense suburb and we have a 2 lane 25mph road that is an alternate route if the highway is backedup. I bike on the sidewalk there because some people fly up and down those roads, while others do the speed limit, and I'm afraid I will be missed by people weaving around. Also the sidewalk along that section I use tends to be pretty quiet, when I ride, so I rarely have to deal with pedestrians. But I'm certainly on high alert for the roads and driveways I cross.
As I said I don't know how driving is in the US. I heard it's really bad in some places. I know it's the way we do it here. There is just one road and cars and bicycles need to get along and share it. It's not always easy, you're right with that. But the sideway isn't an option. Pedestrians and bicycles don't mix well and there regularly are really bad accidents. And the cyclists also get killed by cars there.
There are studies. You end up having a 10x or 20x higer chance to die when cycling on the sideway by being missed by a car driver (I forgot the exact numbers). You can try and mitigate for that by really paying attention yourself, slowing down etc. Keeping track of all the cars around you. I'm not sure if you end up at the same chance to die as if you were cycling on the street. I'd hop off my bike and walk it across the junction if i were on the sideway.
Btw. is it legal to cycle on a sideway where you live?
I'm aware of the studies, but I can't get past the uneasy sensation when a 10-ton semi truck drives by me at 50mph.
I'm not sure if it's technically legal to cycle on the sidewalk, but I've seen other people on bikes do it and I've rode past police officers and I've never been stopped or told not too.
If you have no bicycle safe routes then sadly you should not be biking. Taking it onto the sidewalk not only endangers you in all the ways described in this thread, it also endangers pedestrians. Someone said they wouldn’t care about getting hit by a car coming out of a driveway, because that’s slower than a car on the street. Fine. But if I step out from my the huge bush my neighbor keeps on the boundary of our driveways, onto the sidewalk, and you crash your bike into me I’m going to feed it to you.
I think you're right. Having a semi go past you at 50mph is mental.
I think at some point I need a detailed lecture on how cycling feels in the USA or go and see for myself. It's really difficult for me to judge all of this. Only thing I can say is the sidewalk is a very, very dangerous alternative. But it might very well be the case that you don't have a good alternative.
We usually avoid sharing roads where cars drive at 50mph. Most of the time it's 30mph where you'd get in such a situation. You're allowed to use the sidewalk if you're younger than 10 yo. It's plain illegal for people older than that. In the city cars have to keep a minimum distance of 1.5m to bicycles, that's about 5 feet in crazy people's units. Usually that means the car drivers are forced to switch lanes when going past a bicycle. And it's a bit more sideways distance outside of the cities. All of those rules are written in blood. We're not good at sharing the roads, but car drivers slowly learn to abide by the law and actually keep that distance, it's really getting better in recent times. (But far from perfect.) And my city is half-heartedly building some more bicycle lanes and seperate small roads across the city, exclusive to bicycles. All of that is a major effort and we still get accidens on a regular basis.
Take care.
Seconded, but not on an ebike. And still use an abundance of caution when crossing the street (I'll even dismount and walk if I think visibility is low). I try to minimize that by finding a bike path, but you can't always live next to a bike path.