snip. “…A cyclist has received two tickets after hitting a pedestrian in Halifax…”
Well it’s about god damn time!
This article appears in Mar 20-26, 2008.
The “cycle” of justice
snip. “…A cyclist has received two tickets after hitting a pedestrian in Halifax…”Well it’s about god damn time!
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whooooooooooooooohooooooooooooo! gidde up
FYI, it’s legit:GO #08-40099 – Bicycle Accident – At 8:12 p.m., police responded to an accident involving a bicyclist and an elderly lady near South Park Street and Spring Garden Road, Halifax. The bicyclist drove onto the sidewalk to cut across South Park Street and struck a 60-year-old woman walking on the sidewalk. The lady fell to the ground striking her head. The victim was treated at the hospital and released. Police issued two Summary Offence tickets to the bicyclist, for ‘Driving Without a Light’ and ‘Driving on the Sidewalk.’ http://halifax.ca/Police/PoliceReports/index.asp
This is the sort of thing that happens when cyclists ride on the sidewalk. All you people on this board who insist that cyclists should be on the sidewalk, please take note that this cyclist was ticketed for being on the sidewalk.
Miranda I totally agree. Mike thanks for posting that . We don’t hear enough of that stuff. The police should be addressing both the motorist and cyclist. A bike is a vehicle subject to the rules of the road just as much as a car is.
Although it’s worse that this happened on the sidewalk, this is also the sort of thing that happens when cyclists ride on the street. I’ve lost count of how many times some jerk on two wheels has almost run me down in the crosswalk because he thinks he’s entitled to run stop signs and make right-hand turns without checking first! They even do this at intersections which don’t allow cars to make right turns on a red light. Last week, as the light turned green, I stepped out to cross the street, a man behind me had to grab the back of my coat and yank me back out of the path of some morron who came zooming around the corner at top speed. If it werent for his quick reflexes, I’d be laying in a hospital bed somewhere, and who knows what would have happened to my unborn baby because this asswipe came within inches of hitting me front on.
NMH yes its sad but the city of Halifax will let it continue until someone gets seriously hurt! And as a result sue the city. Stuff like this always gets ignored until its too late!!
blah blah blah cyclists are evil…and people from dartmouth, the bayers lake industrial park, our bus service, posties, squeegie adults, idlers/suv/car owners, and the princess.
I resent that comment.. People from Dartmouth are GREAT!!! (just kidding, no resentment, I’m used to the haters of the darkside 🙂 This is my take on the situation… A Bike versus a Pedestrian, most likely not gonna be any fatalities… A Bike versus a car, we all know who the winner of that battle is gonna be, whether its fatal or not… My opinion is that bikes should be on the sidewalk! Unless going downhill, the odds are, a bike is not gonna be able to get up to the posted speed limit.. which is putting the biker at risk .I’ve been sitting in a line of traffic, at a light, and a bike just slides in between all the cars (hitting my mirror in the process) and moves to the front of the line? I cant do that, why does it make it ok for bikes? why arent thse people getting tickets?
I actually don’t think cyclists are evil at all. I just think people should be more careful and considerate of eachother in general, wherever they are. I do prefer to ride on the street, however I will ocassionally drive my bike on the sidewalk. I only do so if it’s a very quiet sidewalk, and I make sure to go at a leisurely pace. When I do see someone walking, I slow to a snail’s pace and provide a very wide berth around anybody I pass, or I just stop my bike completely. When I lived in Hfx, nobody I encountered seemed to mind this. Many people do the same thing where I now live as well, yet we’re lucky enough to have bike lanes. It seems to balance out however, because during peak commuting hours, the crowds of pedestrians spill out off the sidewalk into the bike lanes!
“When I do see someone walking, I slow to a snail’s pace and provide a very wide berth around anybody I pass, or I just stop my bike completely”Exactly!!
Catlady I applaud you’re ettiquette.
CatLady, I understand what you’re saying. It’s a common misconception that cyclists are safer on the sidewalk. It’s just not true. It’s also a common misconception that cyclists can’t go fast enough to blend in with traffic. Unless I’m going uphill, I can easily keep pace with city traffic. On the subject of bikes sidling up alongside the line of traffic at a light, consider the ramp that goes from Joe Howe Drive up onto the Fairview overpass. That is a one lane ramp. If it was meant to be a two lane ramp, there would be two lanes marked. There are not. But people routinely make two lanes there, because there is room and because it makes sense to do so. When cyclist ride up beside a row of stopped cars, they are doing the exact same thing. There’s room for a bike lane there, even if it’s not marked. Now if there really isn’t room, that’s a different story. But usually there is. The key really is mutual respect and courtesy. But those are in short supply everywhere these days.
Hey Ginger, that was my etiquette, not Catlady’s.
I almost flattened a guy like a pancake one day because he was riding on the sidewalk, had he been on the street I would have seen him.Suck it up. Get off the sidewalk. If it is ‘too scary’, leave your bike at home and walk. Or buy a car(just chucking that one in there for the giggle effect)
CaTLady doesn’t drive a bike 🙂 I was simply quoting NMH… and I think what she does is a great thing…Miranda, can you give me some points as to how its not safer for them to rideon the sidewalk? I’m not trying to be smart or confrontational, I just want to hear your side of it :)And Cranky, Were you backing out of a driveway?
Happy to oblige, Catlady. The majority of car/bicycle collisions occur at intersections and are of the T-bone variety. And in the majority of those, the cyclist was riding on the sidewalk. Motorist pulls up to an intersection, stops, looks both ways, and goes. Suddenly, there is a cyclist where there wasn’t one before. Cyclist either T-bones the car, or gets T-boned himself. The reason being, motorists are looking at the road. They don’t expect traffic coming down the sidewalk at 30 km/hour. Same thing happens when the motorist is exiting a driveway. He checks the sidewalk, but only for a few feet either side of the car. In the time it takes a person to look from one side to the other, a cyclist can come out of nowhere and be right behind the car. Also, cyclists legally do not have the right of way on a sidewalk or in a crosswalk. A person riding on a sidewalk or across a crosswalk does not have the right of way and motorists do not have to yield to him. If the cyclist is on the road, he has the same rights of way as vehicle traffic.
Also, to the OP, cyclists actually get ticketed all the time. You don’t hear about it, any more than you hear about it when drivers get ticketed. It’s only news when someone gets hurt.
I’m pretty sure that a typical walking speed is usually around 2.5 mph, a short distance, non-racing bike is about 10 mph, and a typical car speed in the city would be around 25 mph. Using the most reasonable quantification of motion, kinetic energy, the difference between the speed of a car and the speed of a bike is probably 10 to 100 times the difference between bike and pedestrian. A cyclist is safer on the sidewalk. In a physical interaction, a car is much more likely to cause serious injury to a cyclist than a cyclist is to a pedestrian. I think walkers, runners, skateboards, rollerblades, and bicycles have more in common witheachother than with cars, buses and trucks! Any interaction problems are mainy behavior problems on the part of idiots who aren’t careful, not problems intrinsic to the vehicle being driven.
Your logic is certainly sound, NMH. But as is often the case, life doesn’t obey the rules of logic. More sidewalk cyclists are hit by cars than road cyclists. That’s the reality.
Cranky, you sound really cranky! The reason I sometimes ride on the sidewalk sometimes is not because I am ‘scared’, thank you. When I am in a hurry and need to get to a certain place in under a certain amount of time, I ride on the street. However, I am not a hardcore cyclist who uses her bike to commute; I ride mostly for leisure, to relax. Sorry if I sometimes prefer not to get in between two 18-wheelers at the rotary, but I like to take my time and enjoy my bike at times! There is one road near where I live, a very long, winding road with several blind spots that eventually leads out of the city to a great park. It has no intersections, and a sidewalk that I never, ever see anybody on. It is also a road that is notorious for attracting stupid, reckless, teenaged drag racers. Last month one asshole hit my dog (and no, my dog is not allowed to roam free; he escaped the closed gate to chase a pup when a friend opened it to come in); I was told by witnesses the driver was in the wrong lane, doing close to 80. A week later, one 17 year old guy killed himself while racing down the same road; the third person to die speeding along here in the last 8 months. So yes, when I take my bike down this particular road, I drive on the sidewalk. Why the hell shouldnt I? So you almost flattened a cyclist riding on the sidewalk the other day? I can’t count the number of times I have almost been hit as a pedestrian walking on the sidewalk, I wonder what the statistics are on drivers backing out of their driveways hitting pedestrians. Whatever your mode of transportation , it doesnt take a genius to just watch where you’re going and be careful; whether you’re on foot, skateboard, bike, or in a car.
If the rotary, or other congested places, bother people maybe they should dismount, walk their bikes on the sidewalks provided, and then remount their bikes on the other side and continue riding. If you’re on a bike its not like you’re in a rush.
Despite provincial legislation, that sides with the pedestrian, why is there always the argument that since cyclists do less damage to a pedestrian (theoretically) then it should be OK to ride on the sidewalk? That’s not where cyclists belong.If I’m walking down the sidewalk listening to my i-pod I can’t hear a cyclist behind me. Am I required to do a shoulder check everytime I want to change the direction I am travelling on the sidewalk? I can only speak from personal experience but there have been a few times I have barely avoided contact with a cyclist coming up behind me on the sidewalk. Fortunately I’m still spry enough to react and have been lucky to avoid injury.If I get hit by a cyclist on the sidewalk I agree it likely wouldn’t be life threatening but that’s not really the point. A broken arm, leg, a concussion, a severed achillis tendon are all very likely outcomes of a collision between a cyclist and pedestrian. I can’t speak for anybody else but if I suffer one of those injuries I am off work for quite some time. It would cause financial bedlam in my world and, although I live to see another day, leaves me in a very precarious position.Pedestrians have a hard enough time navigating crosswalks and intersections in HRM. Are we now expected to have eyes in the back of our heads on the sidewalk too? It’s time for HRM to get serious about bike lanes. Pedestrians, Cyclists and drivers would all benefit from dedicated bike lanes. Until then please stay off the sidewalk cyclists.
Bikes are too slow for roads and too fast for sidewalks. Bike lanes seem to be the logical solution.Accidents will always happen though because there are always going to be inattentive people walking/biking/driving as they please.