Xtowers wrote:
It was kind of funny. I got a call from my girlfriend, and she told me
that she was pulled over by a cop on her bike. The cop said that it was
illegal to bike against traffic, which made sense to me. The thing that
didn't make sense was that she was biking on a sidewalk, not the road.

This got me a little interested in the bicycle operation laws of
Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I live. I looked through the Minnesota
statutes, which said that it is illegal to bike against traffic.
However, all those laws applied to only the road, and not specifically
sidewalks. My girlfriend was also biking in an area where it was o.k.
to bike on the sidewalk, i.e. not a business district.

So I was wondering if this is as strange to others as it is to me. I
have never heard of a cop pulling over a bicyclist for biking against
traffic while on a sidewalk. I'm thinking that this cop was having a
slow night. I don't think I'll stop biking against traffic while on a
sidewalk, and if I do get stopped I think I will bring up this issue
with the peace officer who thinks I am doing wrong. I think before I do
that, though, I'll have to make sure I'm up to code on all the other
bicycle laws that I found out I was breaking while reading the
statutes. XD


Your girlfriend derserves every single citation she gets, even a
"reckless driving" charge would be in order. Sidewalks are for
*walking*. Duh. Streets are for vehicles. Brilliant way to get yourself
killed is to zoom through an intersection wrong way when riding on the
sidewalk.

It's not funny or "aw, man, it's no biggie", nope, it's just downright
stupid. It's about 5 notches of stupid above driving drunk.

This is of course assuming you're over 12 years old. In many
jurisdictions you may ride your "My little pony" bmx bike on the
sidewalk if you're under that age, and by the sound of things you may
be able to argue with a judge that you're 10--on an emotional level.