Where I live, I’d say 60-70 percent of the people ride on the sidewalk and don’t wear helmets. It is a common site to see someone with no helmet, on sidewalk, wrong side of the road and headphones on...
Most kids, especially small ones can’t ride on the road. Parents should be careful letting them ride further than around the block on the sidewalk. I wouldn’t begrudge an elderly person riT
Where I live, I’d say 60-70 percent of the people ride on the sidewalk and don’t wear helmets. It is a common site to see someone with no helmet, on sidewalk, wrong side of the road and headphones on...
Most kids, especially small ones can’t ride on the road. Parents should be careful letting them ride further than around the block on the sidewalk. I wouldn’t begrudge an elderly person riding on the sidewalk, but the shouldn’t be doing any more distance than a child. By elderly, I mean 80 years of age with a basket going 6 mph.
Where I live I think it's probably around 50% of the adults ride on the sidewalk with no helmet and headphones on...a great combination! Also where I live it's not real uncommon to read in the news that those people are getting hit by cars! What's really strange, I'll see guys riding $8,000 or so racing bikes, with full pro looking kit on riding the sidewalks in the wrong direction and going fast with no regard for stopping before crossing on a crosswalk. Then when they get nailed they blame the motorist! The cops around here see it differently, if the cyclist is an adult and they are riding at a fast clip with no regard to stopping before crossing a street it's the cyclists fault because bicycles do not belong on the sidewalk, they failed to stop, and they were riding in the wrong direction; that pretty much ends all liability for the motorist.
We don't have a high percentage like you do riding on the sidewalk because we have a almost decent bike path system, but part of the bike path system does push cyclists onto a sidewalk through the heart of the city, I ride the street instead and take the lane, it's safer.
I saw a woman in her upper 80's maybe 90's riding a bike over the weekend not riding at a bad pace for her age especially, she had no helmet on! At first I thought riding at her age without a helmet was recipe for disaster but then I got to thinking about it...you know, if she hit her head even with a helmet on, and not even hit her head that hard, at her age her brain probably wouldn't take it and it would probably kill her, so why not ride without a helmet and have some fun?