Bikers Can Ride on the Bikes on the Sidewalk: Whether one can ride a bike on the sidewalk depends upon where that sidewalk is.
Bicyclists may ride on any sidewalk in Seattle provided they do so in a “careful and prudent manner.” (Seattle Municipal Code 11.44.120) In Bellevue, bicyclists can ride on the sidewalk unless doing so would “unreasonably inconvenience pedestrians.” (Bellevue Municipal Code 11.60.070)
In Spokane, bikers must stay off the sidewalks “within the retail zone of the congested district of the city,” but can ride on the sidewalks everyplace else. (Spokane Municipal Code 16.61.787.1)
Similarly, in Walla Walla, bikes are prohibited on the sidewalks in business districts. (Walla Walla Municipal Code 10.19.100)
Finding the Law: A relatively new website run by the Municipal Research Council, a state agency, makes it fairly simple to look up municipal codes for most cities in Washington. Rather than trudging down to the library and searching through pages of incomprehensible text, anyone with an Internet connection should be able to search for laws in most Washington cities. The site is www.mrsc.org/codes.aspx .
As you might expect to hear from a lawyer, being able to find legislation on a particular topic doesn’t mean that you can answer any legal question. Laws passed by the legislative branches of government are arranged in a relatively organized way in codes and regulations.
However, we are also governed by the common law, which is based upon historical decisions by judges. While judicial decisions are increasingly available on the web, accessing this information is difficult.
The Municipal Research Council and other sites have more and more judicial decisions on-line, however, I am not aware of any free service that provides reliable access to every potentially relevant decision.
This is why lawyers pay up to $900 per hour for comprehensive services like Westlaw and Lexis.
Additionally, using the common law is a lot like writing a book report. Lawyers (whether they admit it or not) read the decisions and look for language that supports their arguments. This takes skill. And this is why, despite the many lawyer jokes with some basis in reality, people with serious legal issues ought to consult with a lawyer.
Bob
Anderton represents bicyclists, pedestrians, and drivers who have been injured
in collisions. He occasionally represents people who have been injured in unsafe
places or those whose insurance companies have acted in bad faith. He is also
a court-appointed settlement guardian ad litem.
Bob can be reached at (206) 262-9290 or bob@andertonlaw.com.
Content
by Bob Anderton,
Attorney at Law
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