I am sick of people not using sidewalks. When I was a kid I remember the town coming in and putting a sidewalk through the bottom of my parents lawn and we were told by the town to take care of it in the winter. Well my brother got tired of shovelling and looked through the towns rules and found out if the sidewalk goes to a school or a park its the towns job to remove the snow. The sidewalk went to both a school and a park. Oh did they fight us, but they ended up doing it.

But the bigger problem I had with the sidewalk and it became very apparent when I learned to drive, is that hardly anyone uses it. Instead they walk down the side of or even the middle of the road or on the lawns. Why not the sidewalk?

I moved to another town about two years ago. I live on my own. There is a side street I drive on every day and on both sides of the road there is a sidewalk. Bothsides! Yet today I almost hit an old lady and two kids because they were walking down the road and not on the sidewalk. People park their cars on the side of the road and people instead of walking onto the sidewalk to go around the car, they just walk more into the road. It is worse when there is a car on both sides making a two lain road into a one way road.

Bugs the crap out of me. It has become a habit of mine to watch the sidewalks and more often then not people aren't using them. I don't know why. The sidewalks are in great shape (I guess cause no one uses them) and are plowed in the winter. That bugs me as well. The roads in my area are often the last to be plowed or might not get plowed, but the sidewalks are. And still people walk down the road!

So does anyone else find this annoying? Do you use a sidewalk or why do you refuse to use them?

1. No snow here

2. My specific city maintains all sidewalks and this isn't a problem for people who live in apartments anyway

Never seen mass-street walking when there's a sidewalk.

Lucky. I have a feeling it is more of small to mid-sized town thing. When I go to a city, people use them. I guess because people walk more in the city, but I noticed alot of J-Walking. Not even looking, just walking out into the street.

Of course I use the sidewalk, and everyone else around here do that as well.

I always use a sidewalk if there is one available. I can't say I've seen many people walking in the road in my town, unless there isn't a sidewalk in that particular area.

Yeah, J-walking is a big problem. I see a lot of stupid J-walking (when people do it like less than 20 feet from a cross-walk)

This is not an issue where I live. Everybody uses the sidewalk, everybody shovels the part in front of their house in winter. Of course not everybody is happy about having to remove the snow.

J-Walking is one of the reasons why I hate going to the City. In this case the City would be Toronto. I live about a hour or so North of Toronto.

Check you're town's rules and you might find out they have to do it

I never liked shovelling it. Then the winter I moved out my dad gets a snowblower, cause I wasn't around anymore. Thanks Dad lol.

I don't really have a problem with people not using the sidewalks, but more so people not using the crosswalks on roads that have 35-40 mph speed limits. Used to see it all the time in Norristown, PA. The people there (well, most of them...the ignorant ones mostly) would just cross the street without looking while popping out between two cars, then look astonished that you have to slam on your brakes and honk your horn.

I remember when I was young child that we were taught to look both ways and look out for traffic. I know common law says that pedestrians always have the right of way. However if I would to hit one of these people and I was doing the speed limit, I would have a serious counter defense that pretty much says they weren't in the crosswalk nor did they look out for traffic.

It's why Donte Stallworth got off with 18 months instead of 15-20 years for killing a guy while drunk driving when the man was crossing a highway. 1. He wasn't in the crosswalk and 2. pedestrians are not supposed to be walking on highways unless it's an emergency.

Same logic applies. If you hit someone while they were not being safe while you were doing everything possible to be safe, you can pretty much get off "scott free" because you did everything right within your power not to cause harm by being reckless while the pedestrian not only didn't do everything in their power not to be reckless but also intentionally (even if not knowningly) did something to put their life at risk.

So next time, hit the bastards. 20 points. (j/k)

Start driving on the sidewalks.

I also think that people not using the sidewalks should be fair game.

I always use the sidewalk and I rarely see people using the street i lieu of a sidewalk. J-walking is not even that bad around here. We have bike lanes for bicycles but they use the sidewalk most of the time and that kind of bothers me I guess.

Anyone on the street when there's a sidewalk is a viable target.

Behaviour like this would be unthinkable where I live.

You'd get run over. You'd certainly get a hefty ticket from the nearest police officer.

The Netherlands is a small country that is densely populated. We have a lot of traffic to guide round.

Sidewalks are for pedestrians, bicycle paths for bicycles and the car lane is for motorised traffic. It works quite well.

We do have pedestrians crossing the street when or where they're not supposed to but not so much actually walking where they shouldn't. I was quite surprised reading your story really, my first thought was: wouldn't they get run over?

That would really bug me. They remove a lane for cars to put in a bike lane and people don't use it but instead the sidewalk? Bikes believe it or not are vehicles and aren't supposed to ever be on the sidewalks. I am not going to rage at a little kid on the sidewalk but an advlt is another matter. I have seen people back out of their driveways and someone on a bike slames into them. It has almost happened to me a couple of times, people hitting me that is.

While I agree with others that they would be at fault if they were hit. I am not sure the law would agree at least where I live. And I wouldn't want that on my conscience.

When they are skinny, old sidewalks and someone is coming or I am with someone, I walk on the street. Sidewalks in front of my house are so old that they have projectiles and cracks popping up, so sometimes I walk on the street even on dark mornings I go to work (I live about 50 yards from work) and dark evenings when I get off work late at night.

EDIT: Yes, I use the sidewalk all the time.

I like sidewalks. They are nice. If I use them, it takes less time to walk from point A to point B than if I walked on the rough terrain beside them. YMMV

I know they have to, that's why they (relucantly) do it.

My answer to this: Cars own the road.

I've never seen anybody doing that in my city. They may skirt along side the road to get to their car or dash across the road.

What? Where do you live and why is that place so horrible?

I want to run people over who think they are the king of the world walking in the middle of the street when there is a sidewalk, plain as day, on the side of the street.

So yeah, I use sidewalks, because I'd be a dike not to use them.

Keep thinking that. What I've noticed is when I drive down the road and I see someone walking across the street, they causally walk across without a care in the world...oftentimes not even paying any attention whatsoever of the car that is very close to hitting them.

About a week or so ago I nearly locked up my brakes trying to avoid hitting somebody crossing the street like this, they never looked at me, never slowed down, never broke their casual, carefree stride. It's like they feel they don't have to follow any rules of the road.

Strange. Where I am in the UK everyone walks on the pavements, only time I've not is if in a quiet area at night with a big group of friends (makes us all moving as one easier when we're not dodging the cars parked on the pavements instead..)

sometimes you see the odd one or two in the middle of the day who is, yakno, well ard

edit: reading some other comments, one thing I don't understand is how 'j-walking' is an issue...

There is no ground to walk on here....

I wonder how long until some idiot gets killed wearing headphones and texting gets killed while jaywalking... and I've seen drivers using headphones as well.