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I always remember being told I was riding too fast on a shared path, when Id actually come to a complete stop to let some mothers with pushchairs who werent remotely interested in 'sharing' the path past me. I was still far enough away from them when I stopped they had to shout to even be heard.

I almost had an 'Alliston' moment a couple of days ago when a woman crossed the road in front of me without looking, on the exit of a blind bend.

No probs I thought, I'll just go round the back of her. But as she got to crossing the centre line she suddenly stopped, did a sort of weird arm-flailing-leg-thing, and worried she would step back, I had to take a really wide line.

I can just imagine her getting home and telling the story of how a speeding cyclist nearly crashed into her! Truth is, the speed some cars go round there, if it wasn't a bicycle, she would probably have ended up over a bonnet.

I reviewed my rear camera afterwards and she just made it over to the other side before a car rounded the bend. I reckon if I had braked and we had done the old, 'after you', 'no I insist, after you', we would both have been over a bonnet.

Haha, I got a finger-wag and a "slow down" from some grumpy woman on zebra crossing in London.

This was after I had stopped before the zebra crossing to wait until she had crossed.

I said "I've stopped!?"   She just repeated herself.  I'm afraid some people's brains actually just disconnect from reality when they see someone on a bicycle ...

Maybe you stopped too quickly?

remember when they are walking anything over 10kph is ridiculously fast, then they get in their cars behind you and you'd bette be able to do 30mph and not hold them up. 

Also had abuse from a pedestrian when I stopped at a pedestrian crossing, because others had gone through before me (on orange)

That was my thought too brooksby.

I am also a bit sceptical about some accounts on shared use paths of "cyclists passing pedestrians at speed" for a lot of people anything faster than a gentle jog pace is passing at speed.

What would happen if the powerful goat was spooked by a barking dog that was being walked along the shared use path and the woman was pulled off her feet.... that would barely be newsworthy would it.   But because it's a cyclist she ran bleating to the newspapers

Heh-heh... "bleating".  I see what you did there

brooksby wrote:

.. but OTOH pedestrians don't often have a very good idea of how fast or how close a cyclist is riding, so I think I'd probably take her testimony on that with a pinch of salt.

or anyone really.

I remember being berated by a horsist for passing their horse too fats even though we were blatently slower than the car we were following which illicted no response at all.

Cyclists are going to fast if you are

• a pedestrian
• a horse rider
• a driver pulling out of a side road
• a driver turning right across the cyclists path

cyclists are going to slow if you are drving behind them.

Even though the cyclist's speed is likely higher in case 2

wycombewheeler wrote:

Cyclists are going to fast if you are

• a pedestrian
• a horse rider
• a driver pulling out of a side road
• a driver turning right across the cyclists path

cyclists are going to slow if you are drving behind them.

Even though the cyclist's speed is likely higher in case 2

This is exactly it..... I tend to find that no matter what situation I am in as a cyclist my speed is always wrong

TriTaxMan wrote:

This is exactly it..... I tend to find that no matter what situation I am in as a cyclist my speed is always wrong

I suspect that to many pedestrians and motorists (and horsists? who knows) it is your existence which is wrong.

brooksby wrote:

pedestrians don't often have a very good idea of how fast or how close a cyclist is riding

I think more to the point, human brains are irretrievably programmed to react with fight/flight response if something moving relatively fast comes unexpectedly past them. 

Even a cyclist going quite slowly is likely to get a jump from somoeone who isn't aware that they're there.  So while I agree that pedestrians don't necessarily have a great idea of how fast/close a cyclist is, that's not necessarily their fault.  We're built to react in scenarios like that, not to make calm, measured judgements of speed/proximity.  

It is also true that cyclists aren't necessarily very aware of how their relative speed will appear to pedestrians.  It "feels" slow to them, just like driving through a 30mph zone feels slow after you've just driven an hour on the motorway - but it can still "feel" very fast to the walker.

Pedestrians as witnesses are notoriously bad. After the accident pictured here the other day in central Oslo, a pedestrian was asked by a journalist to estimate it's speed before the collision with a static building, (It was even behind high-vis temporary barriers due to road works) 
The pedestrian, who was roughly ages with the woman with a goat stated quite without fear of being wrong that the car had been doing "At least 200km/hr" . .  in the centre of town, and the driver survived ?????

I ride carefully around dogs because they could take me out. I would not expect to spook a dog by riding by. It doesn't say the relative directions, but it reads as the cyclists overtook, so would it look like a dog from behind at a quick glance ?

Lucky you that you never spook a dog from behind. I've spooked dogs cycling on the road and them being on the pavement when going past. The difference is a spooked dog might attack rather then run, but it depends on fight or flight. The issue here is not what type of animal it is, it is being considerate on shared paths. 

It would seem the only way to be considerate is not to use the path when she is on it.

How would you have been considerate and do you know what spooks goats?

Do horses spook goats? Is this near a road and do loud m/cs spook goats ?

Dogs really shouldn't be cycling on the road - pretty clever dogs though

hawkinspeter wrote:

.Was she sure that it's a goat, because it sounds more like a battering ram

buttering ram?

wycombewheeler wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

.Was she sure that it's a goat, because it sounds more like a battering ram

buttering ram?

It was on a rampage

Quote:

"When I think of that, cyclists a bolting goat could take anybody out - an elderly person out with their dogs or a child."

Is a goat pushing the shared bit of shared path too far? Maybe that section of path needs a warning sign for farm animals?!