I find that a minority, when hearing that, instinctively take a step left before realizing that they need to move to the right.
I find that a minority, when hearing that, instinctively take a step left before realizing that they need to move to the right.
Your trails have you walk on the left? That is crazy.
Yep! Though other jurisdictions in California might have everyone on the right. It’s not consistent at all, but basically every trail will have pavement markings or signs at the entrances to announce what the policy is.
The idea with walking on left is to give pedestrians a fighting chance, when all other traffic is right-hand traffic. If a pedestrian is walking on right and is struck from behind, they stand no chance whatsoever to avoid serious injury. This advice only applies to pedestrians because humans only walk at 5 km/h.
And to be abundant clear, it’s never a pedestrian’s job to dodge negligent traffic. But if the worse comes to be, it’s a final opportunity to save their own skin, when every other procedural safety layer has failed them. It’s a safety net, not a support beam.
WTH kind of “trails” do you have over there? I thought we were talking about like trails in the woods/mountains, maybe a gravel road at best…?
To defend the comment, I’m including paved trails designed for non-car traffic. So there is a 3+ m wide paved trail for large parts.
This appears to be a cultural/language thing (I’m not from the Anglosphere), I just didn’t have any concept of a “paved trail”, it immediately seemed like an oxymoron to me.
What would you call a paved surface that is dedicated to non-car traffic?
Footpath
I did say “pavement markings or signs”, and this was meant to cover both types: here in California, a “trail” can refer to anything from a minimally-improved dirt route through the forest no wider than a person, to an asphalt-paved multi-use facility with smaller versions of the familiar traffic control signs.
In the context of OP’s question, I didn’t specifically discuss narrow, single-track trails because there’s no possibility of a bicyclist squeezing past a pedestrian without it being a very obvious negotiation of space.
But there are plenty of regional trails which reuse the alignment of an old fire road or railroad. So the prospect of riding a bicycle on dirt in a 3-meter wide dirt corridor is not unheard of. So to come across a pedestrian is also not abnormal. If the weather is good, all walks [no pun intended] of life will make their way to enjoy the outdoors here.
Regional recreation areas will post their trail rules at the trailhead, and periodically along the trails. Some rules are obvious, like not littering. Others are not: horses sometimes get priority over both cyclists and pedestrians, because in areas with lots of horse riding, the horses could get spooked and bolt.
This appears to be a cultural/language thing (I’m not from the Anglosphere), I just didn’t have any concept of a “paved trail”, it immediately seemed like an oxymoron to me.
I’ve come across trails with priority markings, but in my country most trails don’t really have any kind of marked “trail head” at all (apart from the ones very near major cities) like you commonly have in the US.
Ah, I see. American English seems to use trail for almost any path that isn’t meant for vehicular traffic. Note that some historic routes through the West were inconsistently named in the 1800s, so the Oregon Trail was indeed through unpaved wilderness, but the Mormon Road was also unimproved.
On ped only trails or bike-ped trails, I feel like blocking the path is rude. You have others using the trail and the speed differential is a lot lower.
My comment was about bodily safety. In terms of trail utilization, I agree that unduly preventing the use of the trail is rude. But there’s huge daylight between things that are rude and things that are liable to injure people.
Pedestrians should not deny the trail to bicyclists that can safely pass. Even if there are lots of cyclists, at least a column must be kept available for pedestrians.
Ultimately, if such a trail is so heavily congested – and there is one such trail near me – then the municipality bears the responsibility to accommodate users. If this means closing nearby streets to open up more recreational walking facilities elsewhere to shift the demand away from the trail, that’s fine. If that means removing auto lanes on parallel roads to shift bicycle commuters off the trail, that works too. I’m all-in on reconfiguring taxpayer-owned spaces to serve people, rather than as car sewers or car storage.