AITAH for continuing to bike?
today while I was biking home from work, a father yelled at me. In my city, there’s a busy road, street parking, a protected bike lane, and then the sidewalk, in that order. I normally always stop at crosswalks, yield to people already in the bike path, and I’m not some speed demon, I only bike around 6-7 mph.
Today, while I was biking home, I noticed some kids on the sidewalk. When I say kids, I mean toddlers, around 2 years old and four years old, walking close to the bike lane. I slow down a bit more just as the 2 year old jumps into the bike lane, and I hard brake. I stop about 10 feet in front of them. The 4 year old grabs the 2 year old out of the bike lane and holds her, saying “watch out!” To his sister, and then, once they are safely out of the way, I keep biking.
But as I bike away, I hear from 10 feet behind me their dad yelling at me something about disrespectful bikers, meaning he was standing at his parked car about 20 feet from the children, out of my field of vision. To be clear, I wasn’t close to hitting the children at all, but I also genuinely didn’t think these two toddlers were trying to walk across the bike path towards an extremely busy four lane road. Should I have stopped completely and waited? I get that it’s scary as a parent, but I didn’t think I was enough of an asshole to get yelled at, but maybe I’m wrong? AITAH