Scaring pedestrians... (Read 805 times)

I run at night. At least once a month I scare the bejeezus out of some poor pedestrian as I come running up from behind them. I live in a well populated town with quiet neighborhood steets & busy main roads with sidewalks. When I come up from behind some walker I try to give them a wide berth but, it's not always practical. Sometimes I'll try saying a loud "excuse me" as I get close but, that seems to startle people pretty badly too. Two nights ago I scared an elderly woman out walking her dog (lousy watchdog), she laughed about it but, what if she had a heart attack? The teenage girl a couple of weeks ago out walking with her friend let out an actual scream. I was kind of mortified but, as a father I thought she ought to be a little more aware of her surroundings. Do any other night runner deal with this kind of thing? What do you do?

I usually drag my feet 50 yards behind them, but yeah sometimes people are out to lunch or wearing an iPod and you scare the crap out of them. Nothing you can do.

I don't worry about it; if they are so oblivious to their surroundings that they are frightened then that is their problem and not mine. That being said, I don't go out of my way to run quietly or to scare them, I just don't worry about it one way or the other. As with other runners, before I pass them I will usually say "on your left" or something similar.

I'm forever being scared by people coming up behind me (chronically "out to lunch"). Apologize if you want to, but I'd say don't sweat it.

If they are so oblivious they can't here you coming then that is on them not you. If you scare an old lady so badly that she has a heart attack then it was clearly her time to go and if it had't been you it would've been something else in the very near future. One very cold winter day when I was in high school I was out running and because it was about 20 degrees out I was wearing a facemask. As I passed an elderly lady who was carrying groceries she got startled and slipped on a patch of ice dropping her groceries. I immediately stopped and apologized for frightening her and offered to help her up and started picking up one of her bags, she yelled "NO, NO go away" as apparently she thought I was trying to mug her, when I was actually tryingn to help her. Since I was wearing a facemask I guess I can understand why she thought that, but seriously who tries to mug an old lady in the middle of the day when it is 20 degrees outside? Of course she probably thought who the hell would be out running in this weather? Of course, if she had let me help her I probably would've carried her groceries home for her. Anyway, my point is you can't control other peoples reactions to your running, and as long as you are just doing your own thing and aren't going out of your way to scare someone you have nothing to feel bad about.

I try to remember to cough or make some kind of noise, but it doesn't always work. My favorite is when I'm doing track work, early in the morning on a dark track. There are often a couple of walkers there who I seem to scare the bejeezus out of the first time I blow by them. I just say sorry and they're fine after that.

Bells on your shoes will fix that problem. It works with bears.

How do you tell the difference between black bear poop and grizzly bear poop? Black bear poop has little berries in it. Grizzly bear poop has little bells in it.

Make a game out of it and try and give surprise wedgies. No real advice here. Aside from the guy in his skivvies the otehr day, nobody's dumb enough to be out walking at 5 in the morning in my neck of the woods.