Making an absolute statement like “never ride on the sidewalk, or against traffic” ignores the possibility that following those behaviors may be the only reasonable way to get where you are going.

That said, both of the behaviors you described in these posts greatly increase the likelihood of a cyclist being in an accident, and both insurers and courts will generally ascribe the primary fault to the cyclist in these cases.

The funniest thing to me is that in the first coward post you appear to have cribbed a graphic from BicycleSafe.com which explains how to avoid this collision – point 3:

“Crossing between sidewalks can be a fairly dangerous maneuver. If you do it on the left-hand side of the street, you risk getting slammed as per the diagram. If you do it on the right-hand side of the street, you risk getting slammed by a car behind you that’s turning right. You also risk getting hit by cars pulling out of parking lots or driveways. These kinds of accidents are hard to avoid, which is a compelling reason to not ride on the sidewalk in the first place.

And another reason not to ride on the sidewalk is that you’re threatening to pedestrians. Your bike is as threatening to a pedestrian as a car is threatening to you. Finally, riding on the sidewalk is illegal in some places. (In Austin, those places are the Drag, and downtown on 6th St. and on Congress). If you do plan on riding on sidewalks, do it slowly and EXTRA carefully, ESPECIALLY when crossing the street between two sidewalks.”

You got off your bug? Moe, were you ghost riding the whip? Maybe that’s why the biker was yelling at you.