🚀 go-pugleaf

Timothy Ryan Cleary wrote:
> . . . Drivers are
> much more predictable than the pedestrians, who often just listen
> for cars, and jump out into the street in front of me after it's too
> late to so anything but narrowly miss them. . .

Ken Kifer replies:
Some of their other behavior is more blameworthy, but in listening for
cars, they are doing what we do on our bikes.  I find that I can scare
pedestrians to death by waiting until I'm very close to give a warming. 
Sometimes, they turn suddenly and step right into my path too. 
Sometimes, when I am rapidly approach a pedestrian, he freezes and then
starts moving right or left, when all he has to do is to keep walking. 
It's almost as if he wants to be run down!  The traffic rule that
pedestrian should learn is to always look whenever crossing a street. 
Likewise, on the bike, always look when moving left.  Some cars are
extremely quiet.  Cyclists also must try to anticipate what the
pedestrians might do.

Unfortunately, pedestrians can change directions very quickly when we
don't expect it.  Since I ride on level ground at 18 mph, I would
severely hurt anyone who stepped into my path.  The first time a
pedestrian froze on me in a narrow lane was 35 years ago, and I was
traveling over 30 mph!  Because I ride only on the road, these problems
don't occur too often.

People who think bicycles ought to be on the sidewalk or who think
multi-use "bike" paths are a good idea should consider these realities. 
It's especially bad when you consider the possibility of pedestrians
stepping out of doorways and being run down before they or the cyclists
have time to react.

---------------------(Thoreau  Walden)-----------------------------
In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious
to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand
on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is
precisely the present moment; to toe that line.