I'm going to have a rant!

I don't know if I agree with you, oliver.

I"ve tried being nice and explaining to people that they need to look first, or that using the zebra crossing that's only a few metres away would be alot safer for everyone, but that generaly gets me ignored, and occationaly gets me sworn at.

It is very difficult to be assertive in traffic. Most people are in a hurry and unreceptive. In many cases, you will simply not be able to speak to someone in a reasoned way, so just move on--another time. No need to regret that every time--there's only so much you can do when speaking to perfect strangers.

But it's not impossible. I would personally never take the approach of telling people what to do. That will always get their goat. First you need to find a way to take the pressure off a situation--that takes just basic assertiveness skills. What your mate Bambi did may well have worked in that particular situation--depends on how the woman felt afterwards. Assertiveness means 'You're OK, I'm OK'. It's the best way, really, even if someone has made a mistake.

Sometimes a person will be/become receptive. Then calmly explain that it is an unfortunate consequence of the obsession with motor traffic that many people only listen out for engine noise, but that the number of cyclists is increasing, so that it's much more important to look out. At the same time, don't take the attitude that pedestrians need to get out of the way of cyclists. As a matter of fact, in many areas of London where there is huge pedestrian activity, we are effectively guests in a shared-use environment, and the only reason why we get an illusion of priority for vehicular traffic is because traffic engineering has prejudiced the environment against pedestrians (e.g., guard railing, narrow footways). It is not a good idea for us to project attitudes of motor dominance by proxy.

Remember that most people feel extremely threatened in traffic. They don't understand how it moves, and all they may ever have practised is the dash to the Tube station to attempt to get out of Central London as quickly as possible. They often readily accept a status as victims in traffic.

They may be full of anti-cyclist prejudice--many people generalise about, and apply stereotypes to, classes of road user. For instance, a lot of people on here and other cycling forums complain about 'pedestrians' as if they were all the same. This is not a helpful attitude.

As all people make mistakes, traffic should be an environment in which people can make mistakes without getting into (serious) conflict or suffer injury. As cyclists, we can make a major contribution to making 'traffic' more forgiving of mistakes. We travel at speeds that are far more controllable than those of motorised vehicles, we have much better vision, we are not caged in tin boxes and are actually quite approachable, we can interact better socially, we're not noisy, we don't cause as much fear and displacement, etc. In view of all these superior aspects of cycling, we can well afford to give a bit and show everybody why cycling should be the default non-walking mode of transport. It's called 'assertive cycling'.

This is one of the main aims of the National Standard for Cycle Training/Bikeability, by the way, as cycling in urban environments is essentially a social skill. Have you had cycle training? If you get trained, I guarantee you that you will have far fewer problems with pedestrians stepping off the kerb. (I'm certain that you're an excellent cyclist, by the way, don't get me wrong. It's just that everybody can benefit from cycle training, even the most experienced. I certainly learned a lot, and I'm fairly experienced.)

This probably all sounds very theoretical but it works in practice as has been experienced for a long time by people who cycle assertively.

I'm a polite person by nature, but I feel like screaming at a person that steps out in front of me might be rude, but in the long run maybe it will make a bigger impact and they won't do it again.

They will only be further intimidated by 'traffic' and it's definitely not a good idea. You may put yourself at further risk in this way and you're also not being assertive. It takes much more strength to be calm and polite than to be rude in a pressurised situation.

It is actually not in our interest at all to stop pedestrians from following their desire lines. There is a very pervasive culture in this country of 'road safety', which has mostly aimed at scaring pedestrians and cyclists off the streets to allow for the passage of motor traffic. This has created an illusion of safety in the statistics, but in practice has created a culture of fear. The last thing we want to do as cyclists is to propagate that sort of fear. Responsible shared use is always possible.

Besides that, I wear a PAC bag and so most people won't be reading my t-shirt when I'm on the road, mostly when I'm not on my bike for whatever reason. Call it a conversation starter.

I'm sure it can work given a person with the right sense of humour! I just think that the allusion to violence is very likely to get misunderstood.