I am that chap from this morning. This was my first day back on the bike after a 2 week break as the result of a bizarre and painful accident involving a door handle, water and an impalement. What a glorious day it was too, gone was the months of rain, sleet and ice and in their place a lovely morning. There was joy in my heart as I cycled in, the idiot 4x4 who could so easily have taken me out if he had been 3 seconds later barging through the give way, only stopping between the queuing traffic didn't deter me, it was a great morning!
I cycled down Bruntsfield Links, slowing at the bottom to let a dachshund cross, in fact I stopped. The owner apologised and said the dog normally stopped, I said it was ok but suggested walking it next to a bike path wasn't the best idea - more for the dog's safety than anything. I carried on, through the melee of bikes and pedestrians - a dangerous bit as anything can happen. I noticed a guy walking down - listening to music but not really paying attention to the bikes crossing or pedestrians in front of him so I rang my bell to warn him, he kind of snapped out of his dream and stopped, so I carried on, thinking at least he's aware now of where he is.
It was about this point SRD accosted me with the above, I was a bit taken aback and to be honest what I said about the lines was true, I'm normally too busy keeping my eye on pedestrians on their phones or wearing headphones/chatting and generally not paying attention to notice the lines. (I actually did hit someone going the other way, at the crossing last year. She walked up next to me on her phone, and went down the road, as I pulled off, she swerved in front of me, I swerved and hit her but at a very slow speed, she apologised, carried on the phone call and went off at 90 degrees to where she was going when she ran into me.)
I've been communicating with SRD about POP so the infrastructure comment was a rather clumsy tactic to draw a response about POP as there aren't that many tandems in that area - it failed although from the above did eventually work :-)
I don't believe pedestrians have less rights, I always ring my bell if passing close due to path width restrictions, if they move out of the way, I thank them, if they don't, I sit behind them and ring the bell and ask them if I can get past, If they ignore me, I'll pass when safe to do so, I don't barge past.
As far as I was concerned, I had passed the pedestrian safely, I had given way - it was safe for me to pass so I did, however, as I was suffering a bit of pain in my arm at the time, maybe I wasn't concentrating 100% and I admit I may have been in the wrong,
In my defence, my hands are always on the brakes if any pedestrians are around, more so if they are children.
On the bell comments, I nearly alway ring my bell but it is a lose/lose situation, some people see it as harassment, some harass you if you don't. My bell is the small single ding type so I normally do it at least 3 times. I mentioned the incident to a colleague who says he finds if you leave more space between the dings, it's less aggressive sounding and people respond more to it. He probably has a point though the majority of people I do multiple dings to are wearing headphones, I just want them to be aware I'm there.
The other comment about "direct way through" was in fact a response to the good infrastructure comment and was along the lines of "i've got the dangerous bit still to go, the Hotel Missoni" - probably the worst part of my journey. I don't remember using the above phrase.
Anyway, it's been an interesting debate and a hell of a way to finally meet some one :-)
I just wanted to put my side to it, I regularly see cyclists jumping lights, cycling on the pavement, wrong way down one-way streets and other such things. I don't do these (well one very small stretch of pavement linking 2 bike paths and I've spoken to the police about it and they're ok with it and it's recently been considerably widened)
cheers
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