Originally Posted by
CliffordK
The designs of these paths are often more for aestetic than practical safe use.
But, as a rider, you must use them in a safe manner.
As you discovered, yelling at a person, yelling Right or Left, or whatever... never makes a person's movement predictable.
When I was in Jr High or HS, someone organized a road race along one of the local MUPs... A bunch of young kids riding flat out on a curvy trail that was NOT CLOSED. Well... as you can imagine, there were a few wrecks... fortunately no serious injuries.
Anyway, it is not the pedestrians that are at fault. And unless the riders can get safe control of their bikes, they will be the ones removed from the path.
30 feet should be enough space for a well tuned bike to go from 20 MPH to 0 MPH on flat land.
First of all, it wasn't flat, it was down hill at maybe 3% grade. 2nd of all, I think 30 feet is way too short, including normal reaction time. If one assumes 1 second reaction time, that alone is 29 feet. Even at 0.7 seconds, which is considered expert trained reflex reaction time, that's 20 feet before the brakes actually apply to the wheels. Police typically use a 1.5 second reaction time to accommodate older drivers to calculate typical expected stopping distances - but in any case, even a best case reaction time, if one is going 20 MPH, one goes 20 feet before the brakes even can get applied. And it certainly takes much more than 10 feet of applied brake force to stop a road bike moving at 20 MPH on narrow tires.
And certainly, pedestrians walking in the middle of a roadway on a blind turn WOULD be at fault. This bike path is basically a road for bicyclists.