Bicycles – Sometimes Vehicles, Sometimes Pedestrians

A: Are bicyclists who use crosswalks when crossing a road considered vehicles (which must yield to road traffic) or are they considered pedestrians (to which cars must yield) because they are in a crosswalk? In our community this is an issue where paved recreation trails cross busy roads. There are no signals at these crossings.

Q: Bicycles – the chameleons of traffic law. Sometimes they follow the rules for cars; sometimes they follow the rules for pedestrians. So here’s a simple guideline to figure out which rules generally apply. Treat bikes on the road like vehicles and bikes on a sidewalk or crosswalk like pedestrians.

Before we get deeper into that answer, I’ll admit that I’m a bit confused by the first part of this question; the part implying that if a bicycle is a vehicle it has to, by default, yield to other traffic. I might be misunderstanding, and if so, please indulge me for a moment as I make an unwarranted clarification. Bikes are not a lower-status vehicle that takes a secondary position to vehicles with motors. To quote the law, “Every person riding a bicycle upon a roadway shall be granted all of the rights and shall be subject to all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle . . .” There are some limitations in the law for bikes due  to their slower speed, but giving up right-of-way at intersections is not one of them.

Now, back to the question. The same law that I just quoted also states, “Every person riding a bicycle upon a sidewalk or crosswalk must be granted all the rights and is subject to all of the duties applicable to a pedestrian . . .” When a recreation trail (a shared-use path for walkers, runners and riders) meets a roadway and becomes a crosswalk, yes, drivers are to yield to both pedestrians and cyclists in the crosswalk. (Side note: In some business districts riding on the sidewalk is prohibited. Where allowed, cyclists are to yield to pedestrians, so keep it slow.)

Providing crosswalks for vulnerable road users is great, but often these shared-use paths don’t align with an intersection. The rules for crosswalks are the same, whether they’re at an intersection or mid-block, but a driver may be less likely to notice a crosswalk when it’s in an unexpected location. The driver still needs to yield to the person in the crosswalk, but if you’re the one crossing, think about who cares most that you make it across.

If you’re a driver, be aware of what you might need to yield to at these crosswalks. By law a pedestrian is defined as, along with a person on foot, any person who is using “a means of conveyance propelled by human power other than a bicycle.” Skateboards, kick scooters, roller blades, wheelchairs; using any of them qualifies you as a pedestrian. Many of those conveyances are a lot faster than a regular pedestrian, and when I’ve ridden on shared-use paths I’ve encountered all of them, often ridden by kids. The law prohibits a pedestrian or cyclist from suddenly entering a crosswalk when it is impossible for the driver to stop in time, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. How good were you as a kid at knowing and following traffic rules? I was going to make a joke about kids doing dumb stuff, but this applies to grown-ups too. We all have a responsibility to watch out for each other, and this especially applies to any of us who are piloting two tons of steel through a crosswalk.