Take another look at where they put the guardrail

If a road is dangerous enough to install guardrail, then be extra careful to protect bicyclists and pedestrians.

You see guardrail everywhere. It protects drivers from hitting hard objects by bouncing cars back into their proper place.

[Guardrails] can make roads safer and lessen the severity of crashes. The guardrail can operate to deflect a vehicle back to the roadway, slow the vehicle down to a complete stop, or, in certain circumstances, slow the vehicle down and then let it proceed past the guardrail. -Federal Highway Administration

This statement is true with a giant asterisk. The roads are safer if a car bounces back into its lane and hits nothing or just another car. But public works and transportation departments routinely install guardrail on the outside of a sidewalk.

Guardrail brings good fortune to motorists, not so much for the unlucky people using the sidewalks.

You’re pushing a stroller or walking the dog when the out-of-control vehicle careening towards certain doom in a ditch is saved, but you’re the innocent casualty.

This engineering malfeasance is directly related to clear zones.

By creating Clear Zones, roadway agencies can increase the likelihood that a roadway departure results in a safe recovery rather than a crash, and mitigate the severity of crashes that do occur. -Federal Highway Administration

Once you're aware of how engineers misuse the clear zone and put pedestrians at risk, you'll see it everywhere. Intelligent, credentialed professionals do this all the time all across the country. Not only are they getting away with wildly dangerous behavior, it doesn’t even phase them.

I’ve worked with those engineers. They don’t think of mobility outside of a motor vehicle, they’re just following the design process that goes unquestioned. And on the rare occasion that one among the ranks does raise a hand:

“Should we install the guardrail on the inside of the sidewalk?”

“Why?”

“I thought maybe to protect pedestrians and pets.”

“Oh. No, that’s not how we do it. Besides, there probably won’t be anyone walking on this street anyway.”

Clear zones and guardrail locations are worth making a ruckus. You don’t need to be a professional engineer to save pedestrians and bicyclists from certain death on the wrong side of a guardrail.

Guardrail is installed because there’s been some identified risk. If something about a corridor is considered dangerous for motorists, then the public agency should be extra cautious about vulnerable road users.

Question everything about public infrastructure.