to judge this stranger with his child for road safety?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

The street I was driving down is a fairly small, residential street off a busier road. There is parking down one side of it for the top half of the street, and then parking down the other side for the bottom half - so if you drive from top to bottom, you're passing a row of parked cars on your right for a bit, then there's a space in the middle that is two cars wide with no passing, then you're passing cars on your left for the rest of the way. Got the layout?

Understandably it gets quite blocked up sometimes and it is busier than you might expect, as at around 6 everyone is going home and driving down there.

As I was passing, there was a man holding his child's hand walking along the pavement. Child about, I guess, 7? As he walked along they kept meeting people on the pavement coming the other way, so he casually nudged the child into the road to pass them.

The second time he did this I was coming up right behind them. There were cars to my right so I couldn't get far away from the child. There was just about room for him, and I was crawling along at about 15mph as you do in that situation, but I was still pretty shocked. The man wasn't even looking behind him to see if there was traffic, he was just assuming it was safe for the child to get nudged out into the road.

What would you have done, and am I being ridiculous, judgy-panted childless woman who doesn't know what's what?

FWIW I nudged my horn because he clearly didn't have the foggiest a car was there, but it didn't do any good as he didn't seem to realize I was honking at him

LRD - the only well-known parenting fact I can let you in on is that sometimes people (on MN, if not in RL) are weirdly defensive when presented with a fault which they may be guilty of

Regardless of who has right of way, no way would I allow my child to walk on the road. I don't even like them walking on the road side of me. But I do err on the side of paranoia when it comes to road safety.

Pedestrians don't have the ROW - generally you just stop so you don't kill them, it's not the same thing! If pedestrians had ROW then we wouldn't have crossings would we - it would all be absolute fecking chaos!!

The man sounds like a gormless idiot on all counts.

I think you're all being a bit harsh on the OP. It's not really relevant who has the right of way - yes, drivers look out for pedestrians, cyclists, etc, but those people also have a duty not to step out in front of traffic... or nudge their children out in front of traffic. If you want to go down the legal route, it's "contributory negligence", i.e. if you contribute to your own accident it is not 100% the other person's fault. The driver has a duty of care to drive safely, the man has a duty of care not to step into the way of an oncoming car, or to nudge his child into the way of an oncoming car.

Get a grip people and stop beating up LRD

I may have stepped into a parallel universe but unless you were driving on the pavement YANBU!

I always put DS in the inside, why would you not?

Pedestrians do have the right of way. There are pedestrian crossings to direct them to certain locations so that they can cross safely. However, not all streets have pedestrian crossings. Not all streets have pavements to walk on so they are force to walk on the side of the road. This is why pedestrians have the right of the way.

Everyone carries responsibility for road safety but drivers have to make way for pedestrians.

Regardless of whether a pedistrian does or doesn't have right of way, surely it's just common sense to not step onto the road from the pavement without knowing if it's safe to do so?

Stop, Look, Listen, Live comes to mind.

I'm just going to start randomly stepping out in front of traffic all the time and suing the drivers who plough into me. I have the ROW after all.

Jo, it's fine, I do not feel at all beaten. But thanks.

bree - yeah, I did think that (why not put the child on the inside).

mynew - no, there was definitely a pavement, I would have noticed if not!

FFS - How can it be fine for a guy to push his child into the road to get out of the way of people straight into a car what is going to do more damage i wonder?

OP - YANBU

Pedestrians don't have right of way on the road!

They have on corners at junctions when cars are turning, though.
Most drivers forget this, even those claiming pedestrians have right of way, I bet.

Yanbu at all, btw

Just like cars don't have right of way at stop signs, but I'm not going to crash on purpose if they don't stop.

If travelling with DS I will rather stop walking and make the other person move than sending DS to the road.
Besides, everyone knows that pedestrians should face traffic and not walk on the same direction.

Yanbu, he was an idiot.

Years ago, my sisters were walking along a narrow pavement, one stepped off into the road to let two old ladies past, and a car sped round the corner and hit her. She landed on the bonnet, the driver moved her off even though a passing nurse had told him to leave her until the ambulance came. She suffered from epilepsy for years afterwards.

Just as well you were watching the road lrd! You are clearly a good driver

I have been told pedestrians have right of way as long as they are on the road first. So if you launch yourself off the pavement under the wheels of a car you are in the wrong, but if you are crossing the road and a car approaches, they should stop and let you pass. In practise I run like hell if I see a car coming as most drivers seem barely aware of pedestrians at all.

That's awful!