I used to walk and bike on a local “rail trail”. The path wasn’t all that wide but was very popular and often crowded on weekends and on nice summer late weekday afternoons with a large canopy of trees and a winding path in some areas, with walkers of all fitness types and speeds, families with kids in strollers, and bike riders like me who wanted a leisurely ride and the bike riders who wanted to go faster.
Most people followed the curtesy that if you were slower, you moved to the far right of the path and let faster walkers and bikers have the right of way. If you needed to pass slower “traffic” whether walking or biking, you checked behind and beside you to make sure it was safe to do so and you were not cutting someone off.
But I can say a few times people in front of moved in front of me without checking if someone was coming up behind them.
But I also saw very slow walkers and people with very little kids, in and out of strollers occupying the very center of the path without a care in the world who was around them.
This caused the faster walkers and bikers to go into the “slow” area on the right side of the path to get around them and I saw some near collisions, especially with bikes and especially around curves who didn’t see the people in the middle of the path until the very last minute.
If your toddler climbs out of their stroller and gets away from you and sits down in the middle of the path and you cannot take charge of the situation or know that your very tired and cranky toddler wasn’t up for this forced march and decides to have a temper tantrum and sit in the middle of the path, it shouldn’t be a surprised that it would piss some people off.
Was the biker in the right? To me it doesn’t seem he was. But I can understand the frustration.
I definitely the biker should have stopped and confronted them. Although he was stopped pretty maybe he wrecked dodging the kid. But yeah it’s random out there. Oblivious people walking by side taking the whole path and not listening when you announce your pass then yelling that you scared them. People with those long black nylon leashes (that are invisible against tar) standing on one side of the trail with their dog on the other. The guy with mirrors on his handle bars making his bike a foot wider riding down the center line and not using his mirrors. So many dumb ass encounters I had on the trail.
Also narrowly missed a rattlesnake I thought was bull snake until I was 6 inches from him.
Got hit in the forehead by grasshopper which a nice coating of dust to hit both eyes blinding me for a bit.
The lady with the parrot in her backpack/cage. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, but definitely distracting and probably there were problems around her.
Lots of random out there.