The Villages is not "walker friendly"? Give me a break! This is the most walker-friendly place I have seen on Planet Earth! The only streets without sidewalks are neighborhoods -- where the speed limit is 10mph!
Those "diamond lanes" ARE the sidewalk! Walkers have a right to use them as such. You -- the one steering a 2-ton vehicle -- have the responsibility to stay out of them. I walk my dog daily -- him on the curb, me on the gutter -- and I couldn't tell you how many times I've been forced to leap to safety when I came around a corner to find some idiot straddling the line, yakking on their phone -- which wouldn't surprise me if that was the cause of this thread in the first place.
As with every other whine I read on TOV, it could all be solved with an ounce of common sense and a teaspoon of courtesy. For instance -- I always yield the lane to golf carts, so they don't have to merge with car traffic to avoid me. I don't have to do that, but it's much easier for me and much less dangerous for everyone if I simply step off the lane for a moment. The only walkers I've seen who don't attempt to yield the lane, simply aren't that agile anymore. Seriously, the only place in the Villages I haven't found to be full of friendly, courteous people who would do that is TOV.
Nobody has a "responsibility" to walk single-file on a sidewalk that you're not suppose to be driving in. If two people enjoying the morning, walking side-by-side in the diamond lane bothers you, the sun rising every day must really get your goat!
You're retired! Slow down, and relax! Wave at your neighbors instead of flaming them on TOV!
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