Walking on them is literally the entire purpose of sidewalks. I mean its right there in the name. This picture is exactly why - so they're safe from cars and don't obstruct drivers. Your opinion of cars is completely immaterial when determining who is being reasonable in this context.
I kinda understand him. If I have a sidewalk, I use it, simply because I don't want to fucking get run over by a car. However, the comments are also quite disgusting.
I do that all the time here in Europe and nobody gets mad. It's such an immense space and I don't want to be relegated to 30cm of sidewalk. People hang out in the streets and car drivers are chill
People from Bakersfield walk on the street, all over. Once you get used to it though it's really not that difficult to live with. I imagine if people still used roads for walking like before cars, we could figure it out.
We don’t have sidewalks in my community. Kids play in the streets and people are out walking on them all the time. Pushing strollers, walking their dogs, etc. The real difference is everyone is respectful. Cars drive slow and slow down more to go by giving extra space. Folks on the road move over and let the car go by. Kids collect up and move out of the way. A lot of the folks walking their dogs will step into the grass and wait. Everyone waves at each other. It’s like having a nice little community of friends that I never have to actually talk to. After living here for almost two years I strongly believe that I could stop and ask for help from any of them and I’d do the same. Kind of crazy reflecting on being that I’ve only ever talked to a few people, one of which only because she does crossing guard duties for the school crosswalk I take my son to in the golf cart.
I feel like many people commenting are not familiar with walkable streets. They have however been very common for most of the time in history. Using the sidewalk is not really a good substitute for that. I used to live in a neighborhood where there were so many people on the streets on weekends, that u wouldn’t want to drive there even if it was technically a street. The quality of life there was amazing especially in the evening and on weekends.
If there were a bunch of cars in the driveways blocking the sidewalk I would agree, or if they had strollers or something with wheels that could get bumpy on the cracks, but since neither of those are true I'm with OOP on this one.
This lack of self awareness always astounds me. You are in a car, it transports you way faster than your own two legs, it protects you from elements with tons of steel and glass. The same steel that has tons of potential energy. Carless pedestrians are your inconvenience?
Something Americans don't know about is that streets were shared spaces between pedestrians, cars, bikes, everything.
Then cars got a bigger role and pushed everyone else to sidewalks. Then bars and restaurants also wanted part of that space for outdoor serving.
Now pedestrians, bikes, bars/restaurants, bus stops, e-scooters and parking spaces, advertising signs, and trees share the side walk, which in turn has become much more narrow because of car lanes..
I don't care about whatever argument you have about the existence of cars, stay out of their way.
You might have the right of way, you might have the law on your side, you might fully well be in the right but.
The car wins. You either die or end up with permanent lifelong injuries.
Keep yourself safe above all. Bitch all you want but don't deliberately put yourself at risk to "prove a point" you'll just die or get fucked up for no reason other than pride.