Comment by ndsipa_pomu
11 hours ago
I concur. Even the best bell in the world may be utterly useless if the pedestrian happens to be deaf. Also, bicycle bells tend to polarise pedestrians - some people think that bells are rude and insisting that peds get out of the way and other people think it's dangerous and rude to not use a bell every time you overtake.
My solution is to still have a tiny bell on my road bike, but instead of using it, call out something like "can I get past, please?" or if an immediate response is required (e.g. ped blindly stepping into the road ahead of me) then yelling "Oi!" can really surprise them and make them notice you. I'm also a fan of using "Beep, beep" if a ped is on cycle infrastructure (active travel infrastructure is probably a better term) and I want to pretend that I'm an impatient driver.
I think the human voice is far superior to a bell as you can tailor the message for the situation and you don't have to move a hand away from the brakes to do so. (Using your voice is also a very good idea when approaching a horse and rider - horses know about humans and don't get freaked out if you call ahead "Morning!" or something cheery and appropriate).
On my bike commute route, I'd lose my voice before the first meeting of the day if I had to use only my voice.
I realised after a few near misses that my voice is by far the lowest latency signal method I have. If a situation suddenly seems dangerous I'll yell. Perhaps not very polite, but far more polite than hitting someone who stepped out in front of me. A bike bell probably adds a second of latency to find the bell. I'd rather use that time to brake.
The bell can be useful as a more general "I'm here" warning. But if there's any actual risk of a collision, yelling and braking are far more effective.