Originally Posted by
livedarklions
Hate to break it to you, but the law pretty much everywhere is you have to avoid hitting pedestrians even if the pedestrian is acting illegally. If they're in a bike lane, but I can pass safely, I'm going to consider it a technical violation of the law, not even worth noticing. If, and I'm pretty sure I have never actually seen this in many, many thousands of miles, I would need them to move over, I would use my words.
Nobody here is advocating for hitting the pedestrian. Even the meanest roadie knows it's likely to hurt them more than the ped. You seemed to be suggesting that gesturing to the ped that they shouldn't be there (hopefully while taking steps to avoid colliding with them) is somehow showing entitlement and rudeness. In such a case, the ped is still the only one breaking the law. If a cyclist is dumb enough to play chicken with them, that's a whole other story.
I'm glad you have never needed them to get out of the way. Here in Los Angeles, it happens plenty. The biggest reason is, when the ped is going AGAINST traffic, I can't just slow down and tuck in behind them until there's a safe opening to pass (which is what I do with cyclists/runners/peds going the same direction) and there are streets busy enough to have 15+ cars following each other a little too closely in a row. The best I can do in those situations is come to a stop as much to one side as possible. Now I will say that at least 9 out of 10 times, the ped moves over to make enough room for a safe pass. The outliers will keep running directly toward me and even brush against me when I have nowhere else to go.