Re: Reduced sidewalk riding fine & cycle paths - Page 10 - Cycling Mob: Road Cycling, Mountain Biking and More

05-21-2004, 05:42 PM

"Jeremy Parker" <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]> writes:

> Is this stuff about dangerous roads even true? What is the city? How
> do they know? I've seen reports of research in Canada that indicates
> that the kind of people who like to ride on the sidewalk are indeed
> more accident prone than others when riding on the road, but they are
> still safer on the road than on the sidewalk.

One study, done in the town I live in, showed that the accident rate
for riding on a sidewalk was nearly identical to riding on the road
provided you road in the same direction as traffic. Riding on the
sidewalk against the flow of traffic is what is really risky, and
the accident rate was several times higher for this than riding
on the roadway in the direction of traffic.

The study controlled for a variety of factors, but not the speed of
the cyclist. Informal observations indicate that the sidewalk
cyclists usually are far slower than the ones on the adjacent
roadway in the town where the study was done.

Aside from the direction of travel, it seems that people are making
reasonable decisions about where to ride. All the previous studies
that showed an increased risk for sidewalk cycling did not control
for the direction of travel, as far as I know.

Bill

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB