Don't walk your goddamn dog without a leash at ten at night on the unlit bike path!!

Ugh, another lab accident! This is the kind of thing that happens when transit workers are allowed to unionize. :frowning:

:stuck_out_tongue:

More seriously, if you remember the impact and don’t have a visual of a wobbling light, I’m guessing the bike didn’t have a headlight. While it in no way excuses the thoughtless dogwalker, I submit that speeding bikes without headlights on unlit paths are going to hit something, sooner or later.

I know that when walking my own dogs (leashed!), I am always alert for the approach of vehicles and people, so I can rein in the hounds, to prevent unlicensed crotch-sniffing and possibly unwelcome begging for scratches. A swift and invisible approach might catch me unawares.

Sailboat

Harumph… why did you find it relevant to mention the color of the dog?!

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d&r

I’d already passed by when the accident happened. I saw the cyclist before she collided with the dog, and then I heard the dog.

When I’m on a bike path that not supposed to have anything but bikes on it, I’m usually riding at around 40 kmh. I have so many lights and reflectors on me, that I look like a blinking Christmas tree, but I can come up fast and silently pretty suddenly if you aren’t paying attention.

A black dog leaping out at me would be creamed.

If the dog owner didn’t have a leash, how would she pull the dog out of the way? Not all dogs respond right away to owners, particulalry if they are excited about jumping out at something. If matt_mcl was riding ahead of me and the dog jumped out at him and I was the next bike behind him, the dog would be flattened, no doubt about it.

When I saw the Thread title, I thought: Nothing good can possibly come of this. I was right.

25 MPH on a bike during the day sounds dangerous. At night, that sounds downright suicidal.

There are but such areas are typically surrounded by fences and/or natrual features that would slow down a runaway.

One would hope that “runaways” weren’t allowed off the leash in the first place (I know, I’m an optimist by nature). What I was thinking was that there are an awful lot of people on here and on TV (the dog whisperer etc) who only seem to ever walk their dogs on a leash - I think it is far better than no walk at all ofcourse, but dogs need to run free on a regular basis too.

My issue is that if there is a sign that says “Bike Path”, I wouldn’t expect to have a dog on it. In a public area, I wouldn’t expect to see a dog off leash unless the area was fenced and posted. They can run free, as Mrs. Plants do, behind a fence at home. :slight_smile:

I have a friend who claims that a water pistol filled with Tabasco sauce solves this problem.

The point of having a dedicated bike path is to let riders travel at whatever speed they can manage safely, unless there’s a posted limit. No other traffic should be on a path that is exclusivly for bikes. Think of it as a road. You wouldn’t expect drivers of cars to have to deal with pedestrians in the middle of a street - the bikepath is no different.

I completely understand and support the concept of having a path reserved only for cyclists. It sounds healthy and environmentally sound. I’m just opining that traveling 25 mph on an unlit bike path, esp. at night, sounds dangerous, whether there are dogs on the path or simply other cyclists. Of course, I’ve been known to end up on the ground on a completely straight path in the middle of the day.

You have to remember that this was during a bus strike, so a lot of people who don’t normally cycle to work have been commuting, and their wheels don’t have the proper accessories. (Helmet? Lights? Whuh?)

I know it’s not your intent, but still – honey, I’m (gently) laughing at you on this one. For a fit rider who has his lights etc… that’s a reasonable travelling speed. Heck, I often went that speed or faster biking through the streets of Manhattan.

Me too. 25mph is a pretty standard speed for people on bike lanes here. Particularly on the divided bicycle-only lanes (set up with double lanes like a road so all bike traffice moves in the same direction) that are far away from automobile traffic. Heck, on those I have to keep to the right because so many people are faster than me.

I hope you brained the dog with your crutch! :mad: I would have, and if the person tried to make a fuss about their dog, I’d have pointed out it was in self defense.

“Walking your dog without a leash”? It doesn’t make sense. If there’s no leash involved, it should be “you and your dog happening to have left the house at the same time”.

I’ll join you on this one, matt.

There is a path through the local park I take to work on my bike. THERE’S PICTURES DRAWN ON THE SIDEWALK OF A BICYCLE (ONE SIDE), STICK PEOPLE ON THE OTHER. WALK ON THE PEOPLE SIDE.

I appreciate you like to chat while you’re walking. And like to walk side by side. However, WALK ON THE PEOPLE SIDE.

The ones I prefer are the ones that have a curb or barriers for the pedestrian lane, so they’re less inclined to spread out. However, these are few and far between.

No matter how fast you are biking, you still need to do defensive biking, as a driver needs to do defensive driving - there will always be ‘things’ or ‘people’ or animals in places they shouldn’t be. I can’t see that a bike path is any different from a road in this respect. I lived in Holland as a kid where there are bike paths nearly everywhere. You didn’t get people hurtling along unless they had a clear distance to do it. There were always families tootling along on bikes etc. slowing down the speed you could go safely.

I did the bike ride down Haleakala (on Maui) recently, which is basically sitting your ass on a bike with REALLY good brakes and cruising down a mountain road for 10,000 feet. Anywho, the people behind me kept heckling me for going too slow despite the fact that we were approaching Mach 2, possibly even Mach 3. Finally I turned around and screamed at my husband that he’d better shut the hell up or he’d be sleeping by himself for the rest of the trip.

Needless to say, the heckling did not stop. Bastids.