Which side of the trail?

Which side of the trail do you ride if there's a rider coming towards you?

The reason I ask is that there's a pavement/two-way cycle path outside Brighton where a female cyclist was killed last year after colliding with a cyclist coming the other way and being thrown onto the road into oncoming traffic. Nothing has been done to prevent a repetition and lots of cyclists there (it's near the two universities) don't seem to know which side of the trail to ride, so the same accident could happen any time. I've been asking the City Council to paint signs saying 'cycle on the left' on the trail, but I was surprised to hear from the local CTC rep that in her view there is no rule or convention that you should cycle on the left on a two-way cycle path. So she feels that I can't expect the City Council to put signs up.

Do you think she's right? I've always thought it was natural to cycle on the left of any trail in the UK, because we drive on the left. If everybody does it, you won't have collisions and I think that's what I see happening on country trails. But I must admit I've never seen it in writing anywhere. Could it be that because CTC is focused on road cycling, they don't experience bikers coming towards them very often, whereas off-road it happens all the time and we've learned to stay left?

Just as you are taught today and I was bitd to walk on the left side of a path or corridor as we do on the road. These are not law but unwritten convention.

I assume left, but in general, I see what the other is doing, and do the opposite

Yep, riding on the left in the UK makes sense to me.

Same here, it's an unwritten rule here to stick to the right. So left it is.

(keeping in mind that the question was asked with UK traffic in mind)

Pyro Tim":2c3vtbaq said:

I assume left, but in general, I see what the other is doing, and do the opposite

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I steam on into them if they don't follow the rules. Seriously though, if people don't react the right way it can cause an accident, if in doubt slow down as much as possible.

It really gets my goat when people use the passing places wrongly on the road too.

Usually happens on the prom in Bournemouth, and we have so many tourists, and foreign students, not to mention pedestrians, you have to play it by ear. On the trails, if I'm going down hill, I will adjust my line to accommodate the person coming up.