Originally Posted by
Nachoman
That's because a lot of people are just clueless. The same people that can't figure out what they are supposed to do when they hear a bell, also have no idea what to do when they hear 'on your left' .
Again, I say "passing on your left". It definitely works for me better than 99% of the time. I agree that clueless people are a problem for any form of communication. Also, most times I announce, it's preemptive--people are walking exactly where I want them to be. It's really primarily to prevent them from suddenly stepping to their left without looking which happens with surprising frequency if you don't announce. The biggest "problem" I have is usually that people occasionally think I'm trying to drive them off the right side of the path.
To kind of bring this back to the OP topic, I will say that I haven't noticed people on ebikes either being better or worse about announcing or using bells than fast cyclists.