Originally Posted by
gpburdell
Yeah, need to announce early enough to give time for them to react, assess, and respond.
In my experience while sidewalk running, a lot of pedestrians react to "On your left" as a directive to go to their left. Don't see this quite as often on bike on a MUP but still, given the potential confusion I personally prefer the more neutral announcement and see which way they choose to go.
As you imply, a bit of kindness helps attitudes towards the next cyclist or runner - so I try to leave them with a friendly thank you.
To go back on topic - wasn't there to see the OP's incident so I can't truly assess. IMHO though we all each have some level of responsibility not to crash into someone else; and while announcing one's presence before overtaking is good practice, we cannot depend on others to do so. Just as we can't depend on others not to do something unexpected such as pulling a u-turn without a shoulder check.
I agree with all of that. I'm entirely basing my statements about OP's failure to announce on OP's own version of events. Nowhere have I stated that I thought doing a UTurn without looking was at all acceptable. If the Uturner had asked "who's at fault", my answer would still be you should have looked and OP should have announced. I think we are in total agreement.
I use "passing on your left" BTW, the addition of the verb seems to clarify it. "On your left" is slightly ambiguous.
Weirdly, when repeated "passing on your left" produces no response, as sometimes happens, a "HELL--LO!" will usually get people to move. I can't fathom the psychology, and only know that it can work because I got frustrated enough to do the sarcastic method.
I don't ride on sidewalks so I really can't compare