Comment by micv
12 hours ago
It's one thing when you're a fit adult male and get hit by an idiot cycling recklessly on the pavement, it's another if you're a small child or frail through sickness or old age. I've seen a couple of very near misses that would have ended very badly for the pedestrian through no fault of their own.
Saying this it's mostly teenagers in the idiot role from what I've seen and they are reckless by default.
I've been nearly hit by a bicycle-messenger looking dude in San Francisco when I was crossing the street with a "walk" sign at a crosswalk and he blew through the red light at probably about 15mph, and I have plenty of other experiences like that.
If you are running a red light at 15mph on a bicycle, dodging pedestrians, you are just an asshole - maybe you're slightly less dangerous than an SUV running a red light, but it is still completely not okay.
There are dumb teenagers, which is one thing, but the aggressive "well, we're not emitting carbon, so we can do whatever we want crowd" is probably even more crappy and dangerous, since they're deliberate about it, and more present in areas with lots of pedestrians.
Although the truly reckless ones are now on their ~50mph tuned illegal scooters with a "yolo" cheap lithium battery.
Those things are terrifying. Someone's little scooter's wheel base is definitely not stable enough for that sort of speed.
And that's before the battery fires.