Originally Posted by
jitteringjr
Calling out a pass is more dangerous than not in my experience. Most of the time the idiots will just move into the way when you say something. Better to scare them after you have passed them. People need to get over this idea of not calling out a pass as being a jerk move. It is safer to not say anything.
And if you are going to move across the trail to left turn without looking behind you, you are at fault. It is not any different if you changed lanes in a car without looking. You don't get to just flip your turn signal on and have instant access to the turn or lane change.
The magic phrase is "passing on your left". I have found just adding the word passing has drastically decreased the number of people who get confused. That being said, if a path is wide enough where I'm like 8 feet to their left, I generally don't call the pass.
Now about the jerk who went to the left right in front of me after I called out a pass because he had invisible headphones in, I have nothing nice to say. He didn't hear my call, and didn't call out his pass. Fortunately, the slower bicyclists we were both passing made room for me to get in their lane before I would have taken out the jerk.
Hate to break it to the poster above who said drivers don't obsess about each other's bad driving, but BS. They also obsess about bicyclists.