This doesn't seem to be responsive. Your kids (or mine), no matter how heart-tugging a debate example they may be, will still be hurt less from a collision with a bicycle than the cyclist will be from a collision with my car. To argue otherwise, as Yver did above, is silly and counterproductive.

Thanks for the dismissal. "Heart tugging", isn't what I was going for, sport.

Your lack of desire to take seriously your responsibilities to those you share the sidewalk with is a problem for me. You want to be on the sidewalk so you'll be safe, while at the same time, refusing to acknowledge any risk you're imposing on others. That doesn't fly with me. Slow it down, sporty.

Arguing the degree of hurt is pointless - you can kill pedestrians if you hit them with your bike.

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/03/07/san-francisco-bicyc...

http://dcist.com/2012/06/woman_dies_after_being_hit_by_cycli...

How, in an argument arguing for (or against) something based on the harm it can cause, is the "degree of hurt" "pointless". That makes even less sense than the original point I was responding to.

Clearly this is an issue of religion. If so, then just declare your side, sharpen your pitchfork and be done with it. But arguing as this thread does, that riding on the sidewalk for safety is "equally unsafe" needs to be done with evidence. It's certainly not true that the collisions are independently more dangerous. Maybe you could argue that there would be more of them or something.

A bicycle can and occasionally does kill people. An old woman was struck and killed just a couple of blocks from my house. Children would be even more likely to die in a collision I would think.