Arrrgh! Get off the sidewalk!!!

So we took the kids to the library last night, and we're driving home. It's dusk. Visibility is poor due to the low light (beautiful evening otherwise...).  I pull up to a 4-way light between the side street that I'm on and a major 4-lane street.

Now, this street is bad enough for drivers.  It's four lanes, with significant high-speed traffic, with no berm, high curbs, and sidewalks.  It's out in the burbs, and the sidewalks are rarely occupied, so drivers on this street don't expect anyone to be there.  It's the one street in town that I avoid like the plague on my bike.  Still...

Just as I roll up to the light, from my right I catch a glimpse of motion.   Here she comes... dark clothes, dark bike, headphones on, no lights, poor reflectors (they don't work anyway...), going the wrong way(!), rolling right off the sidewalk into the street in front of me, and turning left onto my street.  I had zero warning and even less time to react.  Had I not already planned to stop short of the crosswalk, I would have slammed her right into the oncoming traffic on the main street.  She didn't even look my direction!!!

So here's my three-part rant.  First, bicycles belong, with very rare exception, in the street, riding with traffic, just like a car.  This makes them more visible and more predictable.  Riding with traffic puts the cyclist in a spot where drivers expect to see traffic.  Had she been riding with the flow of traffic, I would have spotted her easily even in the dark, because that's where I was instinctively expecting motion!  

She also needed to be far better illuminated to be riding in the dark like that, and should have been looking for a car to roll up.  Many, many drivers out of habit roll right through crosswalks and nose out into the cross-street at intersections like this.  They're usually only looking left, because they're only thinking about cars, which are always coming from the left.  It's a bad driving habit, for sure, but it's also a bad idea for a pedestrian or a person on a bike to assume that the driver will stop, and even worse to not even look for an approaching car.

I could give her the benefit of the doubt.  She may have spotted me from some distance out, judged my deceleration and known that I was going to stop short.  Then, by the time I saw her, she could have already decided it was safe and then started looking beyond me.  She could have been mistaken, though.

Part two:  If you're going to ride on a sidewalk, ride like a pedestrian!  Yes, pedestrians have the right of way in crosswalks.  But they're usually moving much, much slower than cyclists, and they almost always stop and look (if they listened to their mothers, anyway) before stepping out into the street.  Also, in some areas - like this one - biking on the sidewalk is entirely legal.  However, rolling off a sidewalk into a street is one of the #1 ways cyclists are killed all the time.  Also, be especially wary if  you are riding against traffic.  Drivers on cross streets (like me) won't be expecting you to come from the right.  They certainly won't be expecting you to be coming as fast as you are.  Crosswalks do not presently come with automatic force fields.  So, roll up, stop, and look both ways, just like a pedestrian.  

Parth three:  If you're in a car, don't forget that streets are used by more than cars.  There are pedestrians and people on bikes and skateboards all over the place.  They can pop out from anywhere and can be hard to see, especially at dusk or at night.  Watch for them.  Don't assume anything.  Check both ways.  Pay attention.  You may have the right of way, but that two-ton death machine you're driving can still kill anyone it hits.  Drive it like it's a loaded gun.  

My culpability in this near-accident:  I wasn't really looking for her, and I should have been.  We're both lucky I just happened to aim to stop short of the crosswalk this time.  Like many drivers, I don't always do that (though I should).  I can't really blame her for being on the sidwalk on this particular street.  I probably would have been as well.  But the combination of her poor cycling habits (see above) and even a moment's inattention by me could have been fatal.

Things happen fast on a bike or in a car.  Driving and cycling both demand our full attention, especially when conditions are less than perfect.  Both tasks can easily become so automatic that our attention is easily distracted and/or we become careless.  Last night was a reminder to me that it only takes a split second to change (or end) a life.