I can't decide whose the dumb one here.
I've mentioned the quiet shared paths near my house before - full of kids with parents, people with dogs or kids learning to ride a bike or scooter. There are two people in particular that annoy me because they fly along this path with no regard for other users of the path, and one of them doesnt even wear a helmet. Neither of them use a bell - and this path is, more than anything, what explains my crusade in favour of bells. If EVER a bike needs a bell, its on a path like this - especially if old mate plans on doing 50 km/hr while riding through it.
Anyway, hopefully he won't do that any more. I was keeping left, but had to cross the right 'lane' of the path to get back to my house. I've been so much more aware in these situations since I started riding. But not today - I was one of the dopey pedestrians that just didn't consider the possibility of a cyclist.
So I cross over to the right, which is where he'd headed to overtake me (he was behind me obviously), and in trying to avoid me, he kept going further right... right into the ditch.
He was fine, but really cranky. In most situations I'd let up, because I was more in the wrong... but the lecture I gave him has been brewing for weeks - about not wearing a helmet, about the legalities of a bell, about the stupidity of going too quickly on a path full of animals and kids... and in the end he left thoroughly unsatisfied when he asked for my name, and I replied that I would first like his name - because my error today was just that, an error. His repeated errors in riding too fast around kids without a helmet are not an error - they're a conscious decision to ignore the law, and the police are going to be much less interested in me than in him.
Anyway, he said some choice words and went to ride off, and I indicated that if he's going to ride like a knob and endanger other people, he best not do it to me again.
Perhaps the real winner was my dog - she peed on his tyre while I was lecturing him
(no, this wouldnt have been funny on a $5000 road bike - but on a rusty piece of crap being ridden too fast by a guy without a helmet? It was hilarious.)