tom moody
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Rare Blog-like Personal Rant
If you're riding your bike on a public path that includes walkers, skaters, etc, and you yell out "On your left" instead of just slowing down and maneuvering around them, you are an asshole. Your barked-out command (and make no mistake, for most people who use it, it is a command--to stay put or move over) is just as likely to startle the walker you're trying to pass into swerving or going the wrong direction.
If you're in-line skating, weaving all over the path, and a biker comes up behind you and silently passes you, swinging well wide of you and you bark out the command "Call a side," you are an asshole. You are especially an asshole if the biker says, "Nah, I don't do that," and you say, "You're going to get someone killed."
If you do say that, you might hear something like "I've been riding this bike twenty years and haven't killed anyone yet. Calling a side is a control thing, I don't like it." That is, assuming the doppler effect doesn't muffle this rant, delivered in a matter of seconds as I am passing you.