Hurried commuters are rare on the paths where I live. The city of Raleigh has a 10 mph speed limit on paths; Cary's is 15. If I want to ride fast I use the roads (I typically cruise about 18-22 mph on flat terrain); I treat paths as social space and I slow way down before passing. But the paths here haven't been marketed as transportation facilities and they usually aren't very convenient for non-recreational travel; they are much more parks-oriented. If convenient bike paths were being marketed as commuting routes here, I suspect we'd see a lot more fast commuters on them, and they'd probably ride with a sense of entitlement to go fast.