Just run them over they soon learn (best avoid the bigger ones with short legs unless you have a 160mm FS bike)
As for knocking a cyclist off, if you rammed a car because it was in the way, would you expect the car driver to pay for the damage to you and your bike? If you ram a dog, you are going to end up with a very large bill (in the thousands, as vets aren’t cheap) and the excuse ‘it didn’t move’ isn’t going to hold you in very good stead.
If someone cycled into my dog, because it was in the way it would be *their* fault.
A frightened dog that runs into your path is not out of control, merely startled and confused.
What is all this drek about ‘riding into’ or ‘ramming’ dogs? Nobody on a bike is going to deliberately ride at a dog, the rider will almost inevitably be bought off the bike and injure themselves, probably more than the dog. Being rammed by an out of control dog off a lead coming at you at a dead run from the side when you’re not expecting it will result in injury. I have run over a dog, riding a section of Sustrans route along the edge of a playing field after sunset. I had lights on, and I couldn’t see a soul about, but as I passed a carved stone seat about five feet off the path to my left I caught a white blur out of the corner of my eye and the next second I was nearly thrown over the bars. Somehow, God knows how, I stayed upright and heard a yelp from whatever it was I hit, and a shriek from a female and a bloke shout something. I kept going, but at no time had I seen anybody there, as it was nearly dark, so how, exactly, could I be responsible for ‘ramming’ a dog that shot out of nowhere with no warning, when the owners were there, and obviously not paying attention to and controlling their dog?
Of course if the owner were to just cross the road to the dogs side when they heard a bike bell there wouldn’t be a problem. Dogs are quite intelligent…certainly when compared to Dog owners.
By the way have we done those 30foot long cyclist garrotting dog leads yet?
Don’t get me started on these sort of idiots. I always ring my bell coming up behind people, (which once startled a horse and nearly unseated the rider), but the number of people who don’t pay attention, tell me I have to get off and push my bike past their damned mutt, or tell me to slow down when I’m barely going fast enough to actually get past them is beyond counting. I actually had one person tell me I was going too fast when they had their back to me and I was trackstanding saying “excuse me, please”, after they’d ignored my bell, and their dog was wandering about right in front of my bike. How can a stationary cyclist be going too fast? I’m not going to quote laws or anything, but I know the rights and wrongs of controlling dogs in a public place, and a busy Sustrans Route alongside a canal is no place to have two or three large dogs off their leads roaming around where there are many small children about, as well as peds and cyclists. This is common bloody sense, which all to many dog owners seem to leave in a mug by the side of the bed when they get up in the morning. And as for the excrement…
Posted 13 years ago
