Everyone get out of the way, it’s me!!!

Sorry man, I’m all for mixed use streets and all but these sidewalks look very nice, they should use it. In my country I also walk sometimes on the street because the sidewalks are in terrible conditions sometimes yet the streets are in perfect condition! So that is ~~mildly~~ SUPER infuriating to me. If they were always in a good state I would be glad to use them.

I mean, say what you will about cars but the sidewalk is a dedicated lane for pedestrians. Walk on the street, fuck around and find out.
- Plus if you’re walking in the road walk against the flow of cars not with. That way if a drunk driver (or just general asshole) comes swerving down the road you can see it and react.
  
  I’d like to know why this was downvoted. Walking against the flow of traffic so you can see what’s coming is sensible advice.
  
  my dad always said: walk facing toward traffic, and make eye contact with drivers, so they can be haunted by your face for the rest of their lives if they run you over.
- Fuck around and find out is a pretty shitty attitude towards people sharing a street. Is that the excuse you will give a parent after injuring a kid that chased a ball onto the street? It isn't like this is a highway, people have homes on the street. The street is not exclussively for cars, cars just tend to get the most space and priority.
  
  Don’t share the street is what I’m getting at. I can’t and won’t share the sidewalk with my car, why should I share the street with pedestrians? The picture in the OP is not a kid running into the street for a sec to get a runaway ball. It’s people walking down the street with a sidewalk mere feet away from them. This isn’t the 1800s where there is no sidewalk and you had to contend with horses. Now there are multiple thousand pound death machines. Have a little regard for your own safety and use the dedicated lanes for people.
  
  It's still a multi thousand pound machine with a fallible human operator. Better to be in a space not designated for it.
  Edit to be clear the fault would generally rest with the driver, but pedestrian driver interactions should be limited at all costs
  
  It's not a good idea to share the street when there's a sidewalk. In that equation a car always wins
- Walk on the street, fuck around and find out.
  Maybe we need to bring back blóðhefnd . If a driver murders someone with their reckless driving, maybe they should live the rest of their life in fear that the surviving kin will do the same to them or their lived ones.
  
  If you are walking on the street when there's a sidewalk you as the pedestrian are being reckless.

Walking on them is literally the entire purpose of sidewalks. I mean its right there in the name. This picture is exactly why - so they're safe from cars and don't obstruct drivers. Your opinion of cars is completely immaterial when determining who is being reasonable in this context.
- You can fit like 3-4 cars on there. Why not half that space and extend the sidewalk then? You could not walk next to each other on those or pass others, let alone someone in a wheelchair or with a stroller. Or better, have all the cars park outside of the residential areas and use the space for parks, playgrounds, and other leisure stuff.
  
  Sounds great but not really applicable to the photo, where a driver and pedestrians are trying to use the space, "today"
- I don't disagree with you on a rational level, but on a human level, it just sometimes feels nice to walk a different route, to not be forced to walk in exactly a straight line, especially with a ridiculously narrow sidewalk like that.
  And that's then where the opinion of cars comes in. I'm not supposed to do what I feel like, because some guy with a car decides to head on through. If I think cars are vital to humanity, I'll gladly do the rational thing. If I think cars are killing humanity, then sincerely fuck that noise.
  
  Holy Entitlement.
  "Yeah, there's this whole path for pedestrians, and that whole path for cars, but sometimes I just want to be on the car one for no reason, so cars should be inconvenienced for that."
  
  Y'know what? You're right! Sometimes it's nice to drive a different route too, I think I'll drive on the sidewalk all the way to the store today, thanks for the encouragement!
- I couldnt disagree more with you. If there are pedestrians nearby you drive slow and keep your distance regardless of where you drive.
  The same goes for pedestrians, though. Don't walk where it's not safe, for everyones safety. Like the interstate. It's a shared responsibility.
  This, however, is in the middle of a neighborhood where a ball and a kid could come flying at moments notice...

Posts like this are part of the reason why the rest of us don't take you people seriously.
- Closely related to, "I abuse animals because a vegan was mean to me once."
- Comments like this are part of the reason why the rest of us call your delusional state of mind "car brain".

I kinda understand him. If I have a sidewalk, I use it, simply because I don't want to fucking get run over by a car. However, the comments are also quite disgusting.

I do that all the time here in Europe and nobody gets mad. It's such an immense space and I don't want to be relegated to 30cm of sidewalk. People hang out in the streets and car drivers are chill
- I think it still very much depends where in Europe you do that
  
  Italy, to be exact. Maybe doing the same in Germany would make me end up with a fine
- I do the same in Japan. Most residential streets don’t have sidewalks so we share them with cars, pedestrians and bicycles. Some of the bigger streets have quite wide sidewalks (one car lane’s width or more) so I would use those.
  But in this photo, the sidewalks are minuscule. I especially understand the dog walker choosing the road instead.
  I’m happy that my town has started to widen sidewalks and reduce the width of roads to promote more foot traffic in the downtown area.
- I lived in Morocco for three years and there it’s more common to walk in the street than on the sidewalk. Compared to the other places I’ve lived (Northern Europe), it’s strange, and the driving is more reckless, but no drivers got mad. Walking in the street is just what people do.

- The neighborhood should be rebuilt with much wider sidewalks, for safety.
  
  Cue the chasing goose: safety from what? Finish the sentence, safety from what?
- Exactly.
  Personally, I make an effort to walk in the street whenever possible, even when there's a sidewalk. Not when there are lots of cars around, and not right in the middle. Just enough to claim the space.

We need a “fuck pedestrians” instance for this one guys

But there is a sidewalk. I'm also wondering why these people are walking on the street

If they're gonna walk in the street, I guess I'll drive on the sidewalk. 🤷🏻‍♂️
All for reducing or eliminating cars; but I'm not going to act like this ain't fucking stupid.

People from Bakersfield walk on the street, all over. Once you get used to it though it's really not that difficult to live with. I imagine if people still used roads for walking like before cars, we could figure it out.
- There are so many worse things about Bakersfield, this doesn't even rank.
  
  Hay man, one of the lowest costs of living and average income ratios in the county. Also people get all ''oh no'' about crime rates, but it's really not significant for people who go to bed at 9pm to 10pm and aren't actively entrepreneurs of the night in any capacity. A lot of crime is criminal on criminal.

We don’t have sidewalks in my community. Kids play in the streets and people are out walking on them all the time. Pushing strollers, walking their dogs, etc. The real difference is everyone is respectful. Cars drive slow and slow down more to go by giving extra space. Folks on the road move over and let the car go by. Kids collect up and move out of the way. A lot of the folks walking their dogs will step into the grass and wait. Everyone waves at each other. It’s like having a nice little community of friends that I never have to actually talk to. After living here for almost two years I strongly believe that I could stop and ask for help from any of them and I’d do the same. Kind of crazy reflecting on being that I’ve only ever talked to a few people, one of which only because she does crossing guard duties for the school crosswalk I take my son to in the golf cart.

Maybe they do it to slow down traffic. It’s clearly a residential area. It could be that speeding is a problem.
- It's been tried and tested. Human bodies barely slow a car down. It's much better to place something solid, like a concrete block
  
  Part of the problems is humans won't damage the paint on the cars. You want drivers to slow down, make them worry about their paint tends to be more effective than making them worry about hitting a pedestrian.
  
  I was assuming a rational driver who would slow down to avoid hitting people.
- Using a human body as traffic calming is psycho mode zoning use change
  
  I’m wondering if this is sheer desperation on the part of the locals. Maybe speeding is a problem, but the town refuses to install speed humps, so people do this to make the neighborhood safer for children. I don’t know.

I feel like many people commenting are not familiar with walkable streets. They have however been very common for most of the time in history. Using the sidewalk is not really a good substitute for that. I used to live in a neighborhood where there were so many people on the streets on weekends, that u wouldn’t want to drive there even if it was technically a street. The quality of life there was amazing especially in the evening and on weekends.
- Not enough context is given to know if weather or not that is true here or not. Such roads are rare, while I like them, this does not look like one of those situations froma glance. Therefore cars kill, gtfo the road.

You don't deserve more space just because you bought F150.

This lack of self awareness always astounds me. You are in a car, it transports you way faster than your own two legs, it protects you from elements with tons of steel and glass. The same steel that has tons of potential energy. Carless pedestrians are your inconvenience?
- Well, they slow you down and get your car all dented and bloody

Something Americans don't know about is that streets were shared spaces between pedestrians, cars, bikes, everything. Then cars got a bigger role and pushed everyone else to sidewalks. Then bars and restaurants also wanted part of that space for outdoor serving. Now pedestrians, bikes, bars/restaurants, bus stops, e-scooters and parking spaces, advertising signs, and trees share the side walk, which in turn has become much more narrow because of car lanes..

If there were a bunch of cars in the driveways blocking the sidewalk I would agree, or if they had strollers or something with wheels that could get bumpy on the cracks, but since neither of those are true I'm with OOP on this one.

I get this sentiment but cars will kill you.
I don't care about whatever argument you have about the existence of cars, stay out of their way.
You might have the right of way, you might have the law on your side, you might fully well be in the right but.
The car wins. You either die or end up with permanent lifelong injuries.
Keep yourself safe above all. Bitch all you want but don't deliberately put yourself at risk to "prove a point" you'll just die or get fucked up for no reason other than pride.

The post that finally got me to block this batshit crazy community
- Im glad to help.