How do pedestrians behave in your part of the world? Around here (Scandinavia) they act like deer caught in headlights. If they are crossing the street and you come charging towards them (so they think) perpendicularly (aiming behind them, naturally) and they see you, they invariably stop and stare stupidly, unless they jump backwards and wave their arms in terror. My analysis of this behaviour is that they think they are invisible, or alternatively that bicyclists are deaf, dumb and blind. Because if they credited us with vision and a rudimentary brain, they would understand that we would not be aiming for them, since a head on collision would be as painful for us as for them.
So how do they acts were you are at, and why?
Apart from Stockholm I have only really ridden in Tokyo, where they act as if you knew exactly what you are doing. You can ride right into a crowd, and it effortlessly parts like the Red Sea. Ride on the pavement and people will at the most step aside slightly, no panicking at all. Of course, panic is the worst they could possibly do, because if there is one thing that is likely cause a traffic accident, it’s unpredictable behaviour.
Here in Vancity the peds crossing Granville St on my commute home usually don’t bother looking up the street at all. As a result, their forward movement is even and predictable and you can easily go behind them.
Ah, we have those here as well, and I always hope that they won’t see me, but just before passing them they usually look up, scream and jump backwards. What I find the strangest is when pedestrians cross the street at “don’t walk” without looking. I am fine with people violating traffic rules, but they should always be aware of what is happening around them.
During the day here people usually are walking slow enough that I dont have to worry about it. Its easy and predictable, I hardly ever run into a problem. But at night, in a college town… even giving people 3-5ft in alleys and sidewalks, drunk people always overreact and yell “OH MY GOD YOU ALMOST HIT ME!” It is always trashed sorority chicks who can barely walk home as it is.
not too bad around here until you get on campus, with all the ipod listening students not even trying to pay attention. i love the group mentality situations where there will be a class getting out or something, and as soon as one person steps in front of me then 20 others do the same and i get the pleasure of yelling and weaving my way through.
In Cairo, cars and pedestrians have worked out some crazy system that either doesn’t include bikes or that I haven’t figured out yet. Pedestrians are the masters of the streets. Nobody uses sidewalks. Everyone walks in the street at all times, and crosses the street pretty much at will. This slows traffic up quite a bit, but everyone manages to get around fairly well except for me. I stop a whole lot when I’m on my bike.
Locals here in Chi step obliviously off the crub without looking and then do the deer in the headlights thing or the hopping back and forth “I don’t know which way to go” thing.
Tourons just wander aimlessly, moving without direction or intent wowed by the grandure that is the City. They are fun to mess with. I like to cut it close with them, give em a little bit of the Urban Experience.
peds around here in my small town scamper forwards which makes it even easier for me. cars on the other hand wait till i trackstand a little, and even though they have the right of way insist that I move first. If I were in a car and didn’t have the right away but was waved on I wouldn’t be so hesitant, because if I got hit it would probably be at a slow speed and I wouldn’t get too hurt. Not the same on a bicycle. Plus having to wait for that whole mess takes longer than that dumb car moving itself already.
i hate it when cars stop for me like this, especially when its like one lone car with nobody else around and they stop in the middle of the street to let me cross or whatever.
peds arent that bad, not too many of them. drunk people are fun cause i just yell my ass off. and cruising through campus is more fun than weaving through traffic. i love scaring the shit out of people.
i hate it when cars stop for me like this, especially when its like one lone car with nobody else around and they stop in the middle of the street to let me cross or whatever.
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Yeah, that’s so irritating. It mostly takes much longer both for them and for you, than if they had just passed by. My theory is that cars are so hesitant because they are cut-off from reality, if you are in that steel cage you can’t hear what’s going on, you feel disconnected, and start acting hesitantly.
I love to do this with the local hipsters, the young cool man acting smooth with his girlfriend, and then you screech the brakes or skid just behind them, and he screams like a girl.
In more student-populated areas, they tend to cross without looking and are very startled by how fast and close I ride by them (sometimes intentionally, but I try to keep it safe). I kinda wish I had a bell, but they’re usually listening to their iPods anyways.
In more regular urban areas people tend to be a bit cocky about it. They might look me in the eye and continue to saunter or whatever. If they want to be dumbasses and get killed by a car for the sake of looking cool, I’m not going to stop them or endanger myself by playing chicken. It’s usually teenagers doing this kind of thing.
[quote=“gerund”]San Francisco has the locals, the tourists, and the homeless.
The locals’ actions vary depending on the neighborhood. People know better than to jump into a bike lane in the Mission, and the only time I’ve almost hit some one down there they apologized profusely and shook my hand. Downtown, on Market, it’s a fucking free for all. Dudes in business suits running all over the place, popping up from behind parked cars to sprint in front of me - no one stops to look for a bike, they just run. Or, if they’re dicks, saunter.
The tourists are all fools and most of them act like a) they’ve never seen a SS bike b) never seen a bike lane and c) think bike lanes are Good Places For Conversation. I am getting deeply tired of having to holler at a pack of fatties in fanny packs and visors to please get the fuck out of the way or continue crossing the street. I guess this is partly my fault for having the audacity to ride around Powell and expect that people understand that I could totally kill them, and myself, on my bike when I am going traffic speed.
To compound the tourist situation, we let our tourists rent bikes. Most of these people are not familiar with city riding and get all up on the sidewalk and the crosswalk and the walking paths and generally make everyone’s life hell. They also seem to enjoy congregating around blind corners and the below the crests of huge hills because they want me to hit them.
The homeless do whatever the fuck they want and are generally oblivious to any and all external stimuli. If a dude wants to park his shopping cart in the bike lane and yell profanities at passing cars, all I can do is go around. Doubly unfortunate is that fact that most of these people are mentally unstable or addicted to various street drugs and have no where to go, so they spend all of their time in the street and are frequently hit by cars, bikes, buses, and trolleys.
I think I’m going to rig an airhorn to my bars.
That will solve all of my problems.
every time i’m on my bike during the day, lately, i end up running into these stupid segway tours of downtown. it’s kinda funny, but it kinda of depresses me at the same time.
The peds in Eugene (college town) are the worst. On one block near campus, I’d have people either walkign in the bike lane with their back to traffic (me) or having a conversation in the bike lane all the time. There’s also the “blind diagonal cross” as I like to call it, where someone crosses in the middle of a block from one side of the street to the other with their back to traffic, going diagonally. It’s total lemming behavior. I’m fairly positive that everyone down there needs to take a good collission with an equally oblivious frat/sorority kid on their dept. store MTB to fully grasp the seriousness of the situation at hand.
I’m also fairly positive that the reason the tourists written about above, as well the college kids in my town can’t do the whole aware pedestrian thing worth a damn is because they originally come from the suburbs.
[quote=“Rusty Piton”]Locals here in Chi step obliviously off the crub without looking and then do the deer in the headlights thing or the hopping back and forth “I don’t know which way to go” thing.
Tourons just wander aimlessly, moving without direction or intent wowed by the grandure that is the City. They are fun to mess with. I like to cut it close with them, give em a little bit of the Urban Experience.[/quote]
It IS fun to take a turn and cut very close to them while they cross the street
