This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
PSA: Pedestrians and Bike Paths
Aug
14
2014
This Public Service Announcement is brought to you in part by my commute.
What’s wrong with this picture? And what’s right with it?
We will come back to that. First, though, let’s look at this photo.
By the way, all photos are courtesy of my dash cam.
There’s a scenic drive on my way home from work. It’s a fairly popular place, because it has a nice, wide, paved bike path that runs along the road the whole way.
Let’s go forward a few frames and see if you can tell me what’s wrong.
No, not the fact that someone’s riding a recumbent bicycle.
Why are some bicyclists riding on the shoulder of the road, when there is a perfectly good bike path several feet away (that other, more sensible, people are using)?
The whole reason for the bike path is for bikers to have their own stretch of road. Why put yourself in more danger?
When I am biking, there are some sidewalks that I ignore and I just stay on the road (until I reach the bike path). But that’s because I know the sidewalk ends soon and/or doesn’t follow the road I’m taking. But that’s not the case here. The path is continuous and keeps near the road. And it is not just a sidewalk. It’s asphalt, not concrete, and it’s extra-wide. It’s even better than a bike lane! Use it!
Like these people do:
See? They go across the road and onto the path. Then they stay on the path for their biking. I don’t understand why others don’t do that. Maybe someone can use the comment field to enlighten me.
But back to the original situation. Here’s a photo a few steps later, to refresh your memory:
What’s Good
1. They are walking against traffic.
You don’t want the car sneaking up behind you where you can’t see it. So face the oncoming traffic.
And that’s about it.
What’s Bad
1. The mom has the preschooler walking closest to the traffic.
If I am walking with my kids, I try to keep my kids away from danger. Traffic is dangerous, therefore, keep kids away from traffic.
(Notice how the little girl is hiding her face to avoid the wind and dust from the passing cars?)
2. They are not using the perfectly good walking path a dozen feet away.
As you are know, having read the post up until now, this path goes along the whole road. There’s no way she got to where she was without having to cross the path. So either she is clueless (I seriously considered rolling down my window and saying something, but we were whizzing by at 40mph so I couldn’t react fast enough) or she is I don’t even know what.
And that’s why I am posting this today. Maybe someone will see this and point it out to her. “You know, your walk would be easier if you used the path instead of the road.”
She does not ponder the path of life;
Her ways are unstable, she does not know it.
Proverbs 5:6
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:32 am and has been carefully placed in the Life category.
August 15th, 2014 at 9:11 am
We had the same thing here. Except the path was only 3ft from the road. And the road didn’t have a shoulder, so the bike had to take up a lane of traffic. The bus I was on had to slow to a crawl until it was able to turn.
August 15th, 2014 at 11:41 am
I expect there must be a reason and I just can’t see it. But maybe not.