Sharing pavements with cyclists and scooters is frightening

[Longlazyday]

Particularly the proliferation of motorised scooters and bicycles, and delivery people using these modes of transport and needing to be quick.

See the right of children to run freely on pavements and precincts, and people in general to walk without needing to be on high alert has been eroded.

What’s my point? Why is this considered to be reasonable. Why not just declare full on Mad Max.

Why is this? Are you not able to steer?

yes but they are not able to look over their shoulder before deciding to change direction and have made themselves unable to hear a bike bell on purpose.

Ok , yes, they should be more aware of their surroundings, but I still don’t think that means you should be cycling fast on a pedestrian footpath, despite what the council say!

This really doesn't work when you come up to side roads

It’s nearly always teen boys/young men who do this. TBH they are probably the dangerous drivers too.

The number of people with headphones on and simultaneously stating at their phone does my head in. I use bone conducting headphones and can hear everything around me.

I HATE bicycles and electric scooters on pavements. All it takes is for them to try and pass and for my 5yo to move a step to the left for him to get hit from behind.

I wish the police would stop people cycling/scootering on pavements.

I wush the police would stop drivers using their phones, jumping red lights , turning without indicating, over taking and cutting across, speeding, tail gating etc - just general dangerous driving that kills.

My DH used to cycle to work 6 months of the year. We cycled every weekend off road. He's done the London to Brighton several times. We don't ride on pavements. We live in a village,SE UK, the main road has cycle lanes, and people still use the pavement. There are no 7 young kids,under 12, probably under 10,who thunder along on electric scooters!

a man nearly walked into me today while looking at his phone!
that is Annoying

we walk our dog on a shared pathway with horses and bicycles,
that can be annoying,
they might ring their bell but not everyone can hear them!

Elderly people can also be less steady on their feet or have balance issues which make them more likely to fall as well as coming off worse if they do fall. I have balance issues myself and shared pavements are not great.

Walking dogs on shared pathways ought to be banned obviously. It’s such a daft thing to do. Shared routes are transporting bikes and pedestrians.

How else are people expected to get their dogs to places if a shared pathway is the only option? Perfectly normal to walk a dog on a pavement!

A shared pathway shouldn’t be the only option. Dedicated pavements should be solely for the use of pedestrians, buggies and wheelchairs and small kids on bikes / scooters and dogs, and not adults on bikes or scooters or anything electric. Or parked cars, or roadwork signs (this one really annoys me. We have roadwork signs blocking the pavement so buggies have to go in the road. I move them every fucking time!).

Shared pathways should be dedicated transport routes, ideally away from anywhere a pedestrian would want to stroll. not something a council slaps some paint on and claims they’ve met their eco targets. That’s just dangerous.

We now have a pavement parking ban in my city, with £100 fine if you're caught. The result is that on narrow roads with wide pavements where pavement parking was sensible, people don't do it any more - instead there are roads that large vehicles can't get down, cars scraping each other as they try to get through, missed bin collections as the bin lorries can't make it. The next stage of course will be double yellows on all these roads.

The highway code has guidance which a lot of cyclists clearly haven't read.

a lot of shared paths here have no such segregation, and where there is the cyclists keep to their side, and the pedestrians are often totally oblivious to what is going on. Proper segregation such as they have in the Netherlands would be excellent for all.

YANBU

Every time I have to use those shared spaces in north London I think “this is how I am going to die…”

This. Why hasn't this become a thing throughout the whole of Britain. I don't cycle at all because I'm terrified of cycling on the roads. If this was implemented I would buy a bike tomorrow.

viques · Today 19:51

We have a pathetic exhibitionist loser someone in our area who rides around on one of those electric unicycle things.

You're not in North Tyneside, are you? We have one who weaves in and out of pedestrians at high speed. I'm constantly hoping he'll have to do an emergency stop and dent the pavement with his face.

Except the ones you hire which can as far as I know. Otherwise where would you ride them? Because they're usually in pedestrianised places.

Pedestrians and cyclists would be constantly crossing the road to get to their correct side. We have an off-road bike lane near me, on one side. I use it when cycling into town, but not when cycling back, as I'd have to cross the road to get to it and cross back when it ends, and it's only a couple of hundred yards long, so not worth the trouble.

Also, as an occasional cyclist, cycle lanes on pavements are a bloody pain - wherever they cross a side street you have to check for traffic and give way, and there needs to be a dropped kerb where you cross. Cycling in the road is much more straightforward.

I actually support the OP as a regular cyclist, that bikes should be segregated from pedestrians, and shared use paths are the spawn of the devil, but the fact the roads are dangerous is kind of relevant to the discussion. A lot of what people think are ‘pavements’ are actually designated as shared use paths, and regularly you get anti cyclist frothing saying ‘there’s a perfectly good cycle path there’ pointing to essentially pavement with a blue bike sign on it, and when cyclists protest that shared use paths are not suitable they get more aggro from drivers for not immediately jumping out of the road onto the pavement. Maybe if more pedestrians who also drive would stick up for cyclists using the road in these discussions it would shut down the hatred and make the world safer for everyone.

It’s very rare on a cycle bashing thread for someone to just pipe up and say ‘I don’t cycle but people have an absolute right to ride their bike on the road and we should all support them to do this as per the Highway Code by making the space safe for them and treating them with respect’. Maybe then people wouldn’t need to ‘feel safe on the pavement’. FWIW Dutch style cycle lanes are the way forward but until as a wider population we can ditch cars for more trips to soak up losing a ‘car’ lane it’s more and more space given over to vehicle congestion and everyone else fighting over 4ft of pavement. I will say that on Dutch and Belgian shared use paths you you don’t get issues with bikes and walkers nearly so much, from both hundreds of personal miles and local friends living there full time. People tend to rides on the right and walks on the left (towards bike traffic) as if it was a road, and everyone seems aware of each other rather than headphones in staring at their phone meandering left to right. Here it’s all groups spread all over walking with a dog on a flexi lead, bikes and e-scooters who can’t stick to a side and it’s all one hot mess.

Never see anyone cycling on a pavement around here. It would be a bit difficult with all of the cars blocking it.

E-scooters are illegal to ride around here (except on private land, and let's face it how many people own that much paved land?). So by definition anyone riding one around here is someone who doesn't give a shit about the law or other people. You should see the amount of entitlement on display when they are told that they can't bring them on trains. No surprises then that they're mostly ridden by drug dealers and assorted yobs.

Sounds like the sort of street which could do with the woonerf (living street) concept. Ditch the concept of seperate footpaths and carriageways, the whole street becomes a shared space. Parking only in marked bays and trees etc. planted to provide obstacles that slow cars down to walking pace.