To Hershey's Dog-Mom

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

If you're taking your adorable chocolate lab out for a stroll on the bike-path on a lovely Sunday afternoon, please protect your dog and other people using the path and keep him on a leash.

I witnessed an almost-accident at close range as the dog ambled from one side of the path to another, forcing a bicyclist to slam on his brakes and stop hard to avoid hitting him.

He doesn't know any better, he's just a dog, doing what dogs do. You, on the other hand, should.

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Personally, I don't think it's justifiable or useful to scold people just because they broke a law. Save your bile for people who behave irresponsibly.

The thing is, people who aren't used to doing a particular activity don't necessarily know what the hazards are. I've never owned a dog, so I don't know what parts of the world look hazardous to a dog owner; if I use my own judgment rather than obeying the laws, there's a good chance I'll do something that strikes a dog owner as irresponsibly dangerous. And, in my experience, people who haven't used bicycles for transportation have absolutely no idea what looks hazardous to a cyclist (and their ideas are often the opposite of the truth); when they use *their* judgment, they create hazards. And then everyone is yelling at each other and saying "WTF? I wasn't doing anything wrong! Why'd they fly off the handle?" when they're not saying "Damn you, you almost killed me!" And it's a bad scene.

By all means the rules need to be created by people who are familiar with people's actual usage, and if the rules don't reflect safe and pleasant use they should be revised. But given that, yes, it is irresponsible to break them.