I thought that "riding in the 'opposite' direction" referred to the practice of some bikers who ride in the wrong direction in the street, facing the oncoming automobile traffic in the same lane.
This is an uncommon practice among bikers in Madison. It is fairly common in Baltimore, where I spent several years. I was VERY surprised the first time I saw someone doing this. I think the idea is that it is safer to have a good vision of the automobile in order to avoid collisions, but really I don't know exactly why people do this. Perhaps they plan to collect from someone's car insurance when they are injured/killed. (Other unusual features of riding in Baltimore are, many/most street grates with holes parallel to bike tires, bikers smoking while biking, kids who run into the street to attempt to steal your bicycle, objects thrown from vehicles, and automobiles who try to run your bicycle over from behind. Also, there are no bike lanes or bike paths. Ick.) --Erika Kretzmer On 5/15/08, Paul T. O'Leary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > ---- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > * riding in the 'opposite' direction is a significant factor in bike/car > > crashes > > > > Actually, there is no "opposite direction" on sidewalks. All sidewalks, even > the inner sidewalk of the Square on Saturday morning, are two-way pedestrian > thoroughfares. "Direction" is a reference to the vehicle traffic lanes that > happen to be adjacent to the sidewalk, but it's irrelevant to the traffic on > the sidewalk. Of course, a lot of drivers forget this, esp. when they > approach a street with one-way vehicular traffic. They forget that FIRST, > there's a two-way pedestrian thoroughfare. This is where the crashes come > from. But that has nothing (well, it should have nothing) to do with the > direction of the vehicle traffic lanes. > > There is no way to operate a bicycle on a sidewalk in the "opposite" > direction to pedestrians, as the letter-writer suggests, as pedestrians go in > both directions. > --------------- > Paul T. O'Leary > Chronic Nuisance > Madison, WI USA > > > _______________________________________________ > Bikies mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies > _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
