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Comment by diabeetusman | Hacker News Reader

> I see people riding them on sidewalks, in streets, and in bike lanes

Where are you suggesting that they ride?

Not on sidewalks. Pedestrians can and do change direction on a dime, and on a sidewalk, they always have the right of way.

Adding high-speed (i.e., greater than five mph) vehicles to that mix is a recipe for disaster.

There are some simple rules pedestrians can follow that make commuting easier for everyone. Move at a steady pace. Don't stop or change lanes without doing a shoulder check. Look both ways before crossing the flow of traffic.

This not only makes it easier to share the sidewalk with vehicles, it also improves the flow when there are a lot of foot commuters with different walking speeds.

I live in a city where pedestrians frequently share the sidewalk with both bicycles and electric mopeds. It works because people pay attention to what's going on around them and generally work together to try keep the traffic flowing smoothly.

That sort of rule of thumb works fine with an abled bodied sober and alert adult, but throw in someone with a disability, an elderly person, a toddler, and suddenly it makes far more sense to have the bike/moped on the road and just offer the gutter at the very least for a bike lane. A road bike can kill a toddler.

Usually the way it works here is if a rider sees a kid or older person then they will slow down to walking pace and only pass when it's safe. Pedestrians still have right of way, after all.

I am not against dedicated roads for bikes (although depending on the city's density, they can just end up as a second sidewalk), but I also think it shouldn't be treated as a prerequisite for developing a bike culture.

Again, the honor rule isn't a great rule for people. Most people are reasonable but we regulate for those that aren't. In my experience by shared bike/walking baths, if I see a cyclist in spandex riding a carbon fiber bike at 25mph, I barrel out of the way because they won't slow down, they will hit me, then they will blame me for being in the way of the bike.

For many years I rode and was in favor of "bike culture". Now that I finally live in such a place, though, it's quite clear that this experiment is a failure. Bicyclists ride as they like, without respect to laws or even likely tragedies, and there is no countervailing force to reign them in. I cannot walk a block without observing a bicyclist breaking a law or risking someone's life (often their own).

If bicyclists want this mode of transportation to be taken seriously, they need to start self-policing in a major way. So far I'm seeing not even a hint of that.

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