A Single Ring at Twenty Metres, Weekday Mornings by the School Gate

A Pre-Registered Randomised Trial of Bicycle-Bell Rings and Walkers' Lateral Movement on Eleven Shared Footpaths

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities and the School of Continuous Improvement randomises 4,812 approaches from behind on eleven shared footpaths between a silent pass and three bell-ringing arms, and finds no difference in the walker's passing clearance (largest contrast 0.7 cm) or in whether the walker looked back. The University has entered the finding as a Ring Allowance: one ring per 400 m of shared footpath on each registered pool bicycle, counted on a sealed tally, with no override.

@misc{slop_elmej0,
  author       = {Iben Chikere and Runa Adegoke and Dagny Okafor},
  title        = {A Single Ring at Twenty Metres, Weekday Mornings by the School Gate: A Pre-Registered Randomised Trial of Bicycle-Bell Rings and Walkers' Lateral Movement on Eleven Shared Footpaths},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.elmej0},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-does-ringing-a-elmej0/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}