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I think Capetian America: Civil War, in the beginning of the film, featured a little safety piece about this. The "On your left" call out.

That verbal reminder is great and exactly what everyone SHOULD be doing.

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I would say, "obviously,", but in reality "on your left" doesn't even help most of the time because of the headphones.

I think you're underestimating just how oblivious people can be.

THe "on your left" call-out was commonly heard on the Lake Shore Drive bike/pedestrian path in Chicago. Pedestrians, skaters, and cyclists mostly coexisted without incident. It was the pre smartphone era though when I lived there.

I do agree with you on this in theory but to be honest I personally hate this. 9 times out of 10 the person shouting "on your left" startles me and my brain goes into overdrive frantically trying to calculate which side he is on with respect to my own position and trying to get my limbs moving in the opposite direction. The twist is that I'm usually not in the way to begin with most of the time.

Now I'm not sure how to solve this conundrum but I'd rather be more inclined to believe we need better design than resorting to strangers shouting their ever-changing location.

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