“Full speed on the sidewalk, through a crosswalk. I wouldn’t have taken those chances as a cyclist. I followed the rules that cars had, traveled on the right side in the street like a car. I was instructed that when you are on the sidewalk, you should follow the rules of pedestians.”
In many areas, bicyclists are banned by law from riding on the sidewalk (some of those go back 100 years). The effect of a 20 mph cyclist hitting a pedestrian is akin to a NFL player taking a hit from a linebacker.
The noob cyclists, and many of the old-timers like me, need to learn the laws. Sadly, so do the cops in most areas. Bicyclists need to get tickets for traffic violations.
I actually did get a warning from a cop last week for "running" a red light. However, this light is at the intersection of a main road and an on-ramp to a highway. I explained to him that I normally don't do that, but, at this one particular intersection, it would have been safer for me to run the light than to sit and wait for the light to turn green and run the risk of having a car rear-end me trying to get on the highway.
In my neck of the woods, the worst offenders of this are the Mexican illegal aliens.
Yep.