PH wrote:Cugel wrote:I've never hit a pedestrian, or anything else that was a mobile hazard, in near 60 years of cycling. This is largely due to a strong desire not to be hurt along with another strong desire not to do any hurting. These are less personal choices than attitudes that seem to be built-in. Lucky me, eh?
Cugel
How easy to sit at a keyboard and judge, I'm not sure which I consider more foolish - thinking luck plays no part, or thinking that's all it is. I suspect the amount of that "luck" is directly proportional to the density of population, with London and other major cities being particularly "unlucky". You could ride through a London morning rush hour and stop for every pedestrian that might possibly cross your path, but you'd better take lunch with you and it might be quicker to leave the bike at home altogether.
You mistake what I feel lucky about.
I feel lucky to have a built-in attitude that would rather apply a brake, go slow/stop or otherwise cater to incautious pedestrians, motorists, other cyclists, hedgehogs and even a road-crossing beetle. I feel lucky to have been born with those attitudes rather than have to be socialised into having them. It avoids the hurts, see? Also punitive liability awards for large dosh-lumps in compensation for doing a hurt-dance with some dafty or other.
The luck involved is nothing to do with the rate at which I encounter incautious pedestrians. I would try not to hurt any of them, even swarms of entitled inattentives prattling on their prattle boxes as they throw themselves about willy-nilly in a dangerous place like that London. I'm so-programmed, or so it seems.
As a matter of fact, it was but three days ago that I braked to avoid running over, first, a small dog on an extending lead which ran out from a shop doorway into the road, followed by the owner, neither looking in any direction for traffic as they stepped into the road, Mind, he got a loud "hoy!" which did make him jump. But by then I'd stopped a couple of yards from the potential impact spot. What if I'd been some "my right of way" fellow, just doing the "hoy" but intent on "my rights" and so thrusting ahead? Pain, that's what.
For those not lucky enough to have built-in auto anti-hurt attitudes but rather a "my rights" attitude, I recommend an attempt to socialise themselves into counterbalancing their "my rights" feeling with a "my duties" feeling, in lieu of an insufficiency in their anti-hurt feeling. They too might then avoid the dosh-lump depletion, as well as some hurt.
Cugel
PS Please parse posts more carefully.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
