Traffic on sidewalks kind of ambles, pedestrians never look over their shoulder,  there are no lanes on sidewalks, people just stop or veer without warning and for no apparent reason – that shit would never fly on the street. Remember that I’m generalizing, so please don’t take offense, but these are observations I make on a regular basis.

Pedestrians text and walk all the time, they get so engrossed, they slow right down, and just waft over into your path. If you have one oncoming or you’re trying to pass someone focused on their Smartphone, you sometimes have to calculate the slight arc they are walking, and judge whether you’ll still have an opening once you get close enough, or whether you should decide to pass him on the other side, or perhaps just stop and see what happens.

Notice that a pedestrian never just suddenly turns around, no.  A pedestrian will turn around by stepping sideways quite possibly blindly into someone else’s path. When a pedestrian hears something behind them they might do their side-stepping maneuver, either to see what’s behind them (which is fair), or in a misguided attempt to make way, when it would make so much more sense to just hold his course and allow faster entities to pass.

Pedestrians like to cut corners, when crossing the street, exactly into the path of say a cyclist pulling up to the line at a red light.

A pedestrian might know he can’t cross the street in the 3 seconds left in the countdown of his traffic light, but he will start anyways, knowing that everyone will allow them to safely reach the opposite side, even though they are chomping at the bit.

Pedestrians are so certain of their right of way at intersections like 4-way stops, that they will simply start crossing the street, sometimes without even looking. Jaywalking, if a pedestrian doesn’t hear anything coming on the street they might step off the curb onto the street without looking, forgetting that cyclists are silent. Or he might rush right up to the edge of the sidewalk making it seem as though he’s just going to cross, then suddenly stop, just as you’re about to consider the consequences of a hit’n’run.

The sidewalk has absolutely no rules, people just meander, exit doorways running, appear out of nowhere from behind corners or kiosks, they cut each other off, willy-nilly – there is no discipline or sense of personal space, it’s dog eat dog on the sidewalk!  That’s why riding a bike on the sidewalk, is such a bad idea!

Pedestrians have no problem getting into a cyclist’s space when they want to, but roll onto their turf, and you might get a scowl you won’t soon forget, sometimes even if you are pushing your bicycle beside you, which incidentally makes you twice as wide. A pedestrian might even subtly get a little closer to you, just to illustrate how much you’ve inconvenienced him. Don’t scoff, I’ve seen it! Or he will lurch out of your way in terror to make his point, even though you are still more than 10 feet away from him.

To some degree I understand this hostility. Most of us cyclists are terribly arrogant as well. And some of us do take unnecessary chances with others’ safety.

Then why would I go through the hassle of riding on the sidewalk?  That’s the topic of a whole other blog coming up.