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Mothers! A buggy blockade
As I rode into work along a shared use path this morning, I approached some mothers with buggies. They were walking side by side and took up the whole path. Obviously I slowed right down and did my best to call a cheery ‘cyclist’ to them, and they still didn’t look best pleased at having to let me past. Is it fair that they take the whole of a busy path at peak commuting time, or should I wind my neck in? Are they technically in the wrong or is it just poor form? I’d prefer that they learn the meaning of ‘shared’ path, but bunny-hopping a baby seems a little much! What to do?
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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43 comments
You could try what my son does, he's 16 and has had years of experience of fellow students ignoring the split on a shared use path while traveling to school, just ride at a constant speed and shout when about 10 meters behind someone who's strayed onto the cycling side, if they move great, if not, who knows?
Clearly I'm not advocating this.
Agree with the entitlement comments, some parents think that because they have a kid with them that everything and everyone must move/wait for them, lob in a couple of their mates and you've created an impenetrable wall.
Is Pero's bridge actually shared use? Perhaps it is, but in that case, it's crazy. Way too narrow to ride a bike over except at the very quietest times. Or do I mean way too busy? Comes to the same thing; too crowded.
Yes it is: you can see the blue roundel on the post to the left, on streetview.
Its also on one of the councils signposted routes so people can avoid cycling on the Centre.
Yes, its narrow and can be crowded but it's on my desired line/route and the council has said its a cycle route so who am I to argue...?
If you think that's narrow, try this: https://goo.gl/maps/jPzukY9rHMKSiSS59
It's on a major shared use route route. The bridge is marked "cyclists dismount", but people rarely do.
Some folk are just oblivious to their environment and get upset when anyone no matter how politely invades it and other folks in built racism towards outgroups is intensified by such trivial encounters. Its not worth bothering about, move on.
Look at the Mothers in the park.
For they are ugly, chiefly.
But they were once loved, in the past.
In the dark, and briefly.
Anon
A lot of very depressing comments on this post. Hadn’t realised that so many of you were closet Daily Mail readers just looking for a chance to feel oppressed by the nasty feminists out there.
It stems from a profound insecurity - no halfway successful, confident man is ever going to be threatened by female equality; if you read the posts of those who are then the desire for attention and recognition online that they so obviously lack in real life is palpable. It's sad really.
Look, can you stop making this about the gender of the buggy pushers and instead focus on the real problems?
il_1588xN.1147099488_9qps.jpg
Exactly.
My word! There is obviously hope for humanity yet...
I hate to further a tangent but comments like this irritate me. There are issues within feminism, as within all movements, and attempting to paint people as insecure failures because these issues may bother them is a horrendous strategy.
( I have personal experience with what happens when feminism stops being about female equality and becomes about misandry and pursuing advantage for one's gender, and comments like this hit a nerve.)
Please don't be irritated - you said it yourself - if feminism becomes something else (such as misandry) then it isn't feminism, and therefore previous comments do not apply . I'd be interested to know what issues, if any, within feminism itself you have a problem with?
How you shouted, "cyclist" is everything. If you were as you said already annoyed with them being side by side it's quite possible your tone reflected this. Even if you tried to be cheerful your real frustration likely came through. So they were more annoyed at your tone than having to move over? Which makes a lot more sense to me. They must know cycles are allowed too. Best to use a bell, always gets good results, or be careful of what you are thinking when shouting as your tone will reflect this no matter how hard you try. Nothing wrong with them being side by side, it allows them to talk as they use the path. OK you need to get to work but raising a child is not easy either. A little consideration and sharing go a long way. Have a nice day.
I think you're missing the OPs point, which was basically that a little consideration and sharing goes *both ways*...
I know that parenting is bl00dy difficult.
The following posts, including my own, we're not on the whole having a go at feminists or feminism but at a certain set of mums with small children who feel particularly entitled because they have successfully bred.
But my point was the OP missed that he likely came over worse than he thought he did. Had he really been cheerful I believe they would have moved over willingly and been friendly. I explained why, please read my comment again. In many of my passes I have analyzed on shared paths, I noticed the tone of voice is crucial if shouting out. And even if we think we are "trying" to sound friendly it's hard to disguise what we are really thinking in our voice. Women esp. pick this up. I mentioned nothing about feminism that was another comment, I think you are confusing the two. Feminism does not come into this as far as I am concerned.
But my point was the OP missed that he likely came over worse than he thought he did. Had he really been cheerful I believe they would have moved over willingly and been friendly. I explained why, please read my comment again. In many of my passes I have analyzed on shared paths, I noticed the tone of voice is crucial if shouting out. And even if we think we are "trying" to sound friendly it's hard to disguise what we are really thinking in our voice. Women esp. pick this up. I mentioned nothing about feminism that was another comment, I think you are confusing the two. Feminism does not come into this as far as I am concerned.
But my point was the OP missed that he likely came over worse than he thought he did. Had he really been cheerful I believe they would have moved over willingly and been friendly. I explained why, please read my comment again. In many of my passes I have analyzed on shared paths, I noticed the tone of voice is crucial if shouting out. And even if we think we are "trying" to sound friendly it's hard to disguise what we are really thinking in our voice. Women esp. pick this up. I mentioned nothing about feminism that was another comment, I think you are confusing the two. Feminism does not come into this as far as I am concerned.
But my point was the OP missed that he likely came over worse than he thought he did. Had he really been cheerful I believe they would have moved over willingly and been friendly. I explained why, please read my comment again. In many of my passes I have analyzed on shared paths, I noticed the tone of voice is crucial if shouting out. And even if we think we are "trying" to sound friendly it's hard to disguise what we are really thinking in our voice. Women esp. pick this up. I mentioned nothing about feminism that was another comment, I think you are confusing the two. Feminism does not come into this as far as I am concerned.
But my point was the OP missed that he likely came over worse than he thought he did. Had he really been cheerful I believe they would have moved over willingly and been friendly. I explained why, please read my comment again. In many of my passes I have analyzed on shared paths, I noticed the tone of voice is crucial if shouting out. And even if we think we are "trying" to sound friendly it's hard to disguise what we are really thinking in our voice. Women esp. pick this up. I mentioned nothing about feminism that was another comment, I think you are confusing the two. Feminism does not come into this as far as I am concerned.
Sorry, yes, the feminism comments were aimed at another poster after you - a4th (and it was early in the morning, cut me some slack
).
I have to disagree that "Had he really been cheerful I believe they would have moved over willingly and been friendly." though. In my own experience groups of pedestrians on shared-use paths, and groups of buggy-pushers everywhere, will very rarely move over or make a gap, no matter how nice/friendly/polite you are about it (YMMV).
I don't think that's true, it seems both niave (about how much many pedestrians resent the presence of cyclists on shared-use paths) and also annoyingly unfalsifiable - you can always retrospectively claim there was some secret message present in someone's tone.
I think there's possibly a little bit of breeder-entitlement involved. Some push-chair pushers seem to treat the things as battering rams, very much including with regard to other pedestrians, given the times I've been whacked on the ankles by them as a pedestrian.
I'm surprised they don't just stick rotating knives on the wheels and have done with it.
But it's hard to distinguish between entitlement and the pusher just being stressed and knackered - and the real problem is the use of shared-use paths in high-traffic routes.
Well that's a new label to add to my list.
You don't think that self-entitled people were self-entitled before they became "breeders"?
I think that the Kitten is talking about a certain person, who thinks that they deserve a medal because they were able to successfully breed.
Its often difficult to tell if they were self-entitled @rses before they bred, or if they became one once they had a child, or if they're just faintly hallucinating from massive sleep deprivation...
Hey, it's hard to say! Who can tell? How would one definitively answer such a question?
Expanding on the theme, I'd say it also divides by class. there's a difference between the potty-mouthed and angry but obviously stressed-out-by-circumstances counci-estate-dwelling mum (who constantly disproves the claim of middle-class-American feminists that 'women don't use the c-word'), and the hyper-bourgie weilder of what I have come to think of as 'Dulwich chariots' (when did push chairs start being built like Panzers?)
And both are just one of many groups of less-than-perfectly-behaved throughfare-users.
See also the joggers who seem to think if there were to ever break step or deviate one inch to left or right they'd have to go back to the beginning and start their run all over again. And the scroffulous youth who cycle at speed along pavements. Or their more dangerous older brethen who ride mopeds on footpaths. Both of whom will stop and aggressively ask what you are looking at if you dare to so much as scowl at their anti-social behaviour. Being terribly brave for people who are scared of the roads.
Oh, and the mobility-scooter riders who seem to be practicing for a career as Formula One race car drivers.
Not to mention the mobile-phone zombie pedestrians (I've doubtless been a member of that tribe myself on many occasions), and of course the little kiddies on scooters who follow the rule book issued to young children everywhere that starts with 'under no circumstances should you ever look where you are going'.
Main point is that none of these tribees (except maybe the moped riders) are worthy of a response any stronger than an eye-roll. As long as they aren't in a car they are just part of life's rich pagaent.
Dulwich Chariots are not in the same KSI league as Chelsea Tractors.
You've left out the worst ones - nut shufflers
48314973727_16e76be141_b.jpg
Agreed.
In too many cases, council officers seem to think that if they put up 'shared-use' signs then it'll all be fine and everyone will muddle along.
They don't seem to consider that if they make an area shared-use which actually sits on a desire line for cycle commuters then they can end up with a lot more cycle traffic than they'd anticipated, which leads to conflict (and some serious resentment by the pedestrians).
Example, because all know that anecdotal examples are just as good as real data:
https://goo.gl/maps/CpMtUiSrxz65V4sV7
Pero's Bridge, central Bristol. Shared-use. Desire line for both pedestrians and cyclists. Teensy bit of conflict there... I've actually been shoulder barged to a stop by a pedestrian who thought I should be walking my bike across (as opposed to riding my bike on a shared-use bridge which is part of the city's cycle network
).
Yes! Another homogeneous group I can be part of. Now, I'm a cyclist, driver, pedestrian and buggy-pusher! Add your transport-based preconceptions to my Leave vote and part-ownership of a company that makes things out of plastic and there are now more reasons than ever to hate me without ever having met me.
Remember the scene in Apocalypse Now! when Chef goes into the jungle to look for some mangoes, gets chased by an enormous hungry tiger and eventually escapes, yelling "Never get out of the boat! Never get out of the boat!"?
Well, never ride anywhere but the road.
Unless you're going all the way.
https://youtu.be/ifoN_vDtgiQ
Never get between a bear and her cub.
Buggies are a female dick extension - get used for all sorts. My favourite is mums edging buggies into the road to encourage drivers to stop, without a thought for their darling offspring. And of course, their use as juggernauts (the original meaning) on the school run, crushing all before them as they push them head down, one handed, catching up with Love Island and gramming duck faces to their literally tens of followers as little Tyler is into his tenth game of the day on Fortnite*
*most of this is literally true round here, except the kid is probably called Benji and the buggies are made Bugaboo or Stokke
Getting back on topic, never expect priority on shared-use paths. Most peds won't have even spotted the signs, and if they have, they'll be walking on the cycle section rather than the ped section, or whichever has the best desire line. What we actually need is some sort of AR app that highlights precisely what type of path they're walking on or maybe a proximity sensor*
*alternatively, just paying fucking attention in once a while rather than walking around in noise-cancelling Beats headphones with ambient turned down to zero.
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