Now and again you see a sign telling you that it's legal to ride your
bike on a sidewalk. It may even be a special sidewalk on which curbs
and steps have been replaced with ramps.

It's still a sidewalk. When you ride on a sidewalk, you are totally
and all by yourself responsible for avoiding collisions at
intersections, because the drivers of cars don't see you. Hardly
anybody checks the sidewalk for moving vehicles, and even if you are
seen, you won't be noticed -- a person on a sidewalk is nothing
unusual or relevant to car-driving. His eyes won't linger on you long
enough to notice that you aren't moving like a pedestrian.

As if that weren't enough, every driveway and alley that crosses the
sidewalk is an intersection. On a street, a driver will stop short of
the crosswalk before creeping across the walkway to look for traffic,
but when he is emerging from a driveway or alley, he will pull out to
where he can see the street with almost no attention to the sidewalk.

---------------------

City planners often see no reason not to direct bicycles up the wrong
way of a one-way street. A white stripe may help in the middle of the
block, but at the intersection, someone turning into the one-way
street is NOT going to be prepared to see someone coming toward him.

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The powers that be get a big thrill out of building multi-user
pathways and putting up signs that say "Bikeway".

Somewhere in the world, there is a bikeway. It has sidewalks.

A multi-user path is a walkway on which people are permitted to play
with wheel toys. When you ride on one, you must use all the
precautions that you would use when riding on a sidewalk.

Bend over backward to avoid causing annoyance or alarm to pedestrians;
dismount if you have to. Speak before you overtake. Watch for dog
leashes stretched across the path. And, no matter how
lightly-traveled the pathway is, never, never put your head down and
sprint. You might run down a toddler or crash into a gate. If you
must sprint, at least watch where you are going.

--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.