Originally Posted by
Paul Barnard
I have never had an unpredictable response to an "I am easing around your left." I have seen confused responses to the sound of a bell.
I have a hunch if I came blasting up behind someone and yelled "on your LEFT," that I would get a different response.
My default is "passing on your left". I can count on two fingers the times people have gotten confused by this.
The main reason I call it is because when I don't, people assume that if they don't hear something, it's ok to move to their left without looking, and a couple of close calls convinced me that default mode should be to make my presence and intentions known. Occasionally, someone mistakenly thinks I'm telling them to move over, so I sometimes follow up with a friendly "I have plenty of room".
Nothing works perfectly, but I've see enough confused responses to bells that I know what I'm doing works best for me.
BTW, there's a bit of a logical fallacy going on when people say that it's the pedestrian's fault that they don't know to go right when the bell rings. Keep in mind that from their perspective, they don't know whether the person ringing the bell knows the rule so if the bell-ringer doesn't say which side, there's a pretty good chance that passing on the left would be an incorrect guess.