The sidewalk exists specifically so pedestrians do not have to walk in the road. Hellbeing on the adults who look at both options and choose the road anyway.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Sidewalks Exist. Walking in the Street Is a Choice You Are Making.
To be clear before anything else: this is not about elderly people, disabled people, injured people, parents with strollers, or anyone whose circumstances make the sidewalk genuinely less accessible. Those people are doing what they can with what they have and that is not what this is about. This is about the other category — the fully capable, physically functional adult who looks at a sidewalk and a road and selects the road. That is a decision. That is the decision being examined here.
The Sidewalk’s Entire Reason for Existing
The sidewalk was built for exactly this situation. Pedestrians need to move from one place to another. Vehicles also need to move. These activities are incompatible when they share the same surface, so at some point someone built a dedicated pedestrian path that runs alongside but separate from the vehicle path. That is the sidewalk. It exists entirely so that the person walking does not have to share space with cars. Using it is not a preference. It is the resolution to a problem that was solved a very long time ago.
When someone walks in the road instead of the sidewalk, they are unsolving that problem. They are reintroducing a conflict between pedestrian and vehicle that the sidewalk was built to prevent. They are doing this voluntarily, without any apparent awareness that the sidewalk represents infrastructure built specifically to give them somewhere to walk that is not the road.
The Couples
There is a specific formation that appears when two people walk in the road together. Side by side, at matching pace, occupying the full width of the lane. They are connected at the hip or the hand or both. They are moving slowly. They are in conversation. They are, in their understanding of the situation, simply taking a walk together. In everyone else’s understanding of the situation, they are a two-person barricade moving at the speed of a problem.
The slow walking in public issue and the street walking issue share the same quality — a complete non-registration of the impact of one’s physical presence on the people and vehicles navigating around it. It is not hostility. It is the genuine absence of the thought that the space is shared.
The Simple Resolution
The sidewalk is right there. In most cases it is literally adjacent to where you are walking. The transition from road to sidewalk requires a single step to the side. The walk continues. The destination does not change. The time does not change. The only thing that changes is that you are no longer in a space designed for vehicles, which seems like an improvement in every direction.
More at Infernal Insights. The apparel — worn on sidewalks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Usually because they are not thinking about it. The sidewalk requires a slight detour, the road is a straight line, and the habit of using the sidewalk is not strong enough to override the path of least resistance. In some cases the sidewalk is in poor condition. In most cases it is simply a choice made without much consideration.
In many jurisdictions yes — jaywalking laws and pedestrian traffic regulations require pedestrians to use sidewalks where they are available. The enforcement of these laws varies significantly by location but the sidewalk-first expectation is built into most traffic codes.
If you are driving, slow down and give them space. Do not honk unless genuinely necessary for safety. If you are also a pedestrian, step around them on the sidewalk if possible. The most useful response is patience rather than confrontation.