alt Hacker News> If im cycling through a shared space, I find it extremely rude to ring the bell, because it feels like I'm telling people to get out of my way, but they have just as much right to a shared path as I do.
It’s certainly rude to ring the bell in a aggressive manner, but many bells are capable of producing much softer, more polite sounds.
In super busy old European capitals I find that people increasingly just ride around with speakers playing a constant tune at a reasonable volume, a massive improvement on dense streets full of varyingly sober people.
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I still think that ringing bells at people is a little rude, regardless of the tone. Like imagine if you were at the grocery store, blocking the isle and someone lightly chimed a bell at you instead of just saying "excuse me".
IMO if I'm in a dense pedestrian zone and I can't go around people and I can't communicate by voice, it means I'm going too fast.
> In super busy old European capitals I find that people increasingly just ride around with speakers playing a constant tune at a reasonable volume, a massive improvement on dense streets full of varyingly sober people.
I sometimes do that. It helps not having music that could be described as aggressive. I often use reggae.
However it means you need a speaker charged so it is not something I have ready everytime I use my bicycle, nor do I want to carry it everyday when leaving the bike attached somewhere so it can't be the goto solution.