Nuxx:52d9e34a-4c43-44cc-9868-529aeed3645a@o36g2000yqh.googlegroups.com

Path: number1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!o36g2000yqh.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <52d9e34a-4c43-44cc-9868-529aeed3645a@o36g2000yqh.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: Shared cycle path - auditorially distracted pedestro-kretins stepping into the path of cycles Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 21:56:49 -0800 (PST) References:  <62r786-no5.ln1@slug.kantaka.co.uk> Lines: 40 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.156.251.147 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1236405409 14042 127.0.0.1 (7 Mar 2009 05:56:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 05:56:49 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: o36g2000yqh.googlegroups.com; posting-host=81.156.251.147; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009011913 Firefox/3.0.6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 3262 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:688148

On Mar 6, 3:11 pm, Phil Armstrong  wrote: > Light of Aria  wrote: > > > > > I am increasingly concerned / distressed / irritated by fools with > > headphones on who meander along shared use cycle paths, whom upon > > approaching, I sound the courtesy bells several times, and yet the > > pedestrians do not acknowledge one's approach. > > This sounds suspiciously like a piece of concern trolling to me.

Strange, it seems perfectly reasonable to me. Has LoA previously done something (like, shock horror, sticking up for motorists) which automatically earns him/her the "troll" label no matter what he/she posts?

> Replace cyclist with car driver & pedestrian with cyclist in the OP's > rant. Does it still sound reasonable?

Actually, many here (especially the likes of Spindrift) seem to villify the car driver far more in your situation than the cyclist in the OP's scenario. No doubt that's because of the underlying opinion that drivers "shouldn't be driving at all", and if they weren't then there would be no car for the pedestrian to step out in front of (whereas OTOH cyclists are "better" than other road users and so a certain amount of pedestrian-hitting is "not as bad"). Which is of course extremely unhelpful, as it is allowing cultural prejudice and social engineering to interfere with the road safety effort, which is far more important than the other two things because it's about stopping people being KILLED.

> Shared use paths are just that: shared use. If you can't cope with a > pedestrian acting unpredictably then you're going too fast.

In some circumstances, yes. In others, such as the pedestrian suddenly changing course at the last second, absolutely not. And it's the same with pedestrians/cyclists and cars. Only sometimes is the car driver going too fast, and virtually none of the time has "exceeding the speed limit" got anything whatsoever to do with it.