I moved here from Queen Anne over four years ago. The Island atmosphere is great but I am aggravated by one daily annoyance I didn’t notice nearly as much in Queen Anne, as there were more sidewalks there. I’ve never seen so many seemingly intelligent adults walking and riding bikes on the incorrect side of the road as I do here on the Island.

The correct and legal side of the road to walk on is the left side of the road. This puts your path against (facing) oncoming traffic and affords you the advantage of seeing oncoming traffic. This allows you to get out of the way in the event a vehicle is about to hit you either from being distracted from texting, a heart attack, blown tire or any number of other unpredictable reasons.

Riding bikes is just the opposite. Riders are to ride with traffic as their relative speeds are much closer and a collision would not be as pronounced. For example, if you’re riding at 20 miles per hour and were bumped by a car traveling the 25 mph speed limit on my street, it would be a 5 mph bump. However, if you were riding against traffic at the same speeds, the collision would be equivalent to riding into a brick wall at 45 mph.

Those of us who have driven long enough have all had our cars go too far right at one or more times for whatever reason. Imagine walking on the wrong side of the road and getting hit from behind by a car you never saw coming travelling 30 mph. You would simply wake up in a hospital bed, possibly handicapped for the rest of your life, wondering what happen and that’s if you’re lucky.

I think the best citations the Mercer Island Police could give now would be citing people for walking and riding on the illegal side of the roads. At a minimum, they should stop folks and let them know how to walk and ride bikes again.

Matt Cero

Mercer Island