In the roads near my office (central London), which are seldom used by cars, several pedestrians at a time very often walk down the road or diagonally cross the road head in phone. You can get very close and the still don’t notice (the slower you are, the quieter you become so even less likely to hear you).

I’m not sure arguing against a bell is helpful - people need to look on any road, especially with the advent of quiet electric cars.

> Why can't the cyclists slow down when they see that there's a human obstacle in front of them?

They usually do. (The considerate and/or non-confrontational ones. There are always idiots, and people have the tendency to remember negative outliers and project their behavior on the group as a whole, which is unfortunate.) However, slowing down isn't the whole story. Riding a non-motorized bicycle is much easier if the rider can keep moving, however slowly, so it would be considerate in turn for the pedestrian to step aside and let the cyclist pass, if possible. A distracted pedestrian can be warned by a bell.

Separately, delivery riders as a category have an incentive to ride as quickly as possible, which is a recipe for conflict. Removing that incentive means removing or completely reimagining the service. I don't think that anybody has a solution or mitigation at present.

Generally I am pretty accommodating of pedestrians and give them a wide berth but sometimes they do some pretty obnoxious things like walk six abreast or cut right in front of you erratically without looking.

I have very little time for people who freely absolve themselves of their personal responsibility to be aware of their surroundings and we shouldn't be encouraging people to zone out of society just so they can consume more.

I am comfortable cycling slower than walking pace and if I am in a real rush for speed I will cycle on the road but sometimes pedestrians can cause serious cycling accidents even when you're careful or slow.

There are often a LOT of human obstacles, and we have places to be! I slow down a bit but I don’t have a lot of patience for total unawareness. I don’t find this to be an issue with riding in the city because I ride on the road or in bike lanes. But when I go trail riding, it’s very annoying when people take up the trail and do not hear or react to my bell. Sometimes the situation is such that it is difficult to stop or evade the person, such as during a technical descent. If you’re out on the woods, there is really no excuse not to be aware of your surroundings.

We do slow down.

I've lost count of the times I've been riding at walking pace behind someone, on a shared path, waiting to get past because they're completely oblivious to the bell ringing, politely asking, or even flashing lights.