Energy Analysis is pointless in this situation.
Mixing cyclists and pedestrians is extremely dangerous in locations where pedestrians aren't used to cyclists, because pedestrians have a tendency to change directions very quickly.
Mixing cyclists and pedestrians is extremely dangerous in locations where pedestrians aren't used to cyclists, because pedestrians have a tendency to change directions very quickly.
In my own experience I was somewhat surprised to find that using a bell actually works a lot better than saying "Excuse me please".
Also, some pedestrians will do intentionally stupid things when encountering a cyclist on a cycle path, but fortunately them seem pretty rare and far less common than cyclists who do stupid things.
edit: doh!
[NB This isn't a serious problem, but I do spend a reasonable amount of time on cycle paths trying to co-exist with other path users on civilised terms!]
As a cyclist, I don't feel like it works very well. About 50% of the time the pedestrian startles and dodges when they hear you say it. In about 50% of those cases, the direction they dodge is to the left. And this is on the bike path where pedestrians are presumably accustomed to and expecting bicycle traffic.
I still do it for the sake of courtesy (and the hope that it will eventually become a common and well-understood practice), but I don't rely on it and give pedestrians as wide a berth as possible as well.
In which way? Unless the cyclist is moving like a madman in a crowd, the worse that usually happens is a bruise (and in rare cases, a broken bone).
When I'm riding, cars pass centimeters away from me, and that's not because they're careless but because in some areas there's simply no other choice, except riding on the sidewalk.
> aren't used to cyclists
Unless you organize like here[0], people need to cooperate with cyclists, whether in a car or on foot.
As arrethuza mentions, a bell on your bicycle helps a lot (and cars simply don't hear that bell). It's not aggressive in any way (entirely unlike a horn on a car), and people just move out of the way of cyclists without much thinking about it.
As far as helmets are concerned, I rode for my college road team, and I wore a helmet every time I touched the pedals for training and racing. We went very fast, and the competitions justified it. When I rode my beater bike to class I never wore a helmet. I was just fine.
A major reason people don't want to ride bikes to work when a helmet is required is really cosmetic, because they don't want to screw up their hair! Have you met a girl who wakes up and gets ready for work then says, "oh yeah let me mess up my hair on the way to work"? I am a dude, and If I had the option to ride A bike to work, I might not just because I need to look professional.