I could rant for hours on this subject. I have severe tunnel vision with less than 5 degrees field of view. e.g. if I look at your eyes at a conversational distance I can't see the tip of your nose.

At the moment I have four pet hates at the top of my mind thanks to recent encounters with them.

Small book incoming. TLDR Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

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Cars parked blocking the pavement. Not uncommon round here. Sometimes I have to walk in the road to get past them. Even if they've left enough space for most people I'll sometimes not spot the mirror and walk into it or smash my hand into it.

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Bikes left in awkward places or fallen over across the pavement. These can actually cause me to trip and fall over since there is so much opportunity for getting tangled and I find them to be really hard to see. And they hurt to land on...

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Sharp bushes bordering footpaths. I currently have scabs on my hand from swinging it into a rose bush whilst stepping around a wheelie bin.

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In the UK shops commonly have knee high flimsy folding yellow plastic signs to mark wet floors. I never see them. The first I know I've kicked them whereupon they fold up and fall over and muggins here normally feels the need to try and spot them on the floor and stand them up again one handed whilst juggling my cane in the other.

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In daylight I don't have much problem with wheelie bins and street signs since they're normally big enough to be caught in my normal scanning for people. I have been known to move them off the path if their placement is particularly annoying. At night however (I have no night vision) they can be pretty bad but they don't hurt as much as bikes or bollards. Bollards are horrible, and honestly a problem in daylight as well but I'd forgotten about them until now. Thin, dark, solid steel, and perfectly aimed at crotch height. Bollards have caused me a lot of pain and also been the cause of some very impressive thigh bruises...

My city has been fighting a scooter company that just up and moved in without permission. These scooters get left all over the city with the idea that they will be available in various locations for people to use. The problem is that when people are done with them, they just leave them in walkways and even roadways. It's an annoyance for the sighted and abled, but can be downright dangerous for the visually impaired and a complete impediment to those with mobility issues.

As a cane user, this is incredibly annoying. The number of times I’ve gotten it stuck in the spokes of someone’s bike is ridiculous.

The thing that bothers me the most is stose signs with advertisement on them, which the store owners put up to gain more visibility.

I get that you need to get some customers to keep the business going, but could you at least try to put your ads somewhere, where I don't walk into them by accident.

It's annoying and dangerous. It's very inconsiderate. I can navigate around the lazy people who leave their scooters in the middle of the sidewalk but elderly people or those in wheelchairs may have more of an issue

Victoria, BC, Canada where I'm training right now is just chalk full of street clutter. It's not as bad as a less developed country I'm sure, but still. I'm talking big concrete mounted trashcans that stick out into the walk path at times, bike wracks often with bikes in them on both sides randomly and everywhere, small to medium trees in the middle of the sidewalk (no I'm not exaggerating it's a green project) lots of planters sticking out (only on the building side thankfully) and then combined with the regular fire hydrants, lamp posts, parking meters, bus stop poles/signs, benches, badly placed sandwich boards, outdoor seating for restaurants, ETC it's just, a constant onslaught of stuff that slows me down and distracts me since I'm already trying to filter the noise.

I will say though that at least there is always something to find as a warning at the edge of the sidewalk even when there isn't any curb, and you can avoid a fair bit of it by staying in the middle and using a reasonable cane arc about 2/3 of the time, at least where I tend to walk.

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There is this one bus stop where there are all sorts of things right up against the curb, and because multiple bus's can show up at once you have to run around to find the other ones and sorta patrol up and down encase you can't here the bus behind the first one do to the loud engine noise. The combination of the crowds, the two bus shelters in the way, and this crap on the edge means you need to thread through these very small paths, at a highish speed, and trying toa void running people over. If you stay on the street side, you need to balance on the curb with all these big bus's less than a foot away and it's honestly quite scary because they could take off any moment and you could easily slip or be pushed, but there is no other good way to get near the bus door to ask which bus it is without plowing sideways through multiple streams of people going in/out of the bus's.

Oh yeah.

I’m helping a guy who made this post https://reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/bs433p/hi_there_need_honest_oppinion_of_blind_person_on/ and I really think this device will help tuns of people with things like this.

I used to be in Los Angeles and Santa Monica area often and the amount of scooters just ditched right in the middle of the sidewalk is infuriating to me, a totally blind pedestrian. I hate those scooters now just out of spite for the bruised shins because of them.

Trash day is the worst when walking through residential neighborhoods bump into a trash can every ten feet.

Thanks for replies, /u/DeafBlindAndy , /u/Raf_AL , /u/HDMILex

Sorry if it was a stupid question, but I wondered as I've noticed on (London, UK) streets increasing numbers of street sandwich boards, hire bikes, bins. Presumed that there would have been a lobby group on your behalf, making protests to local councils.

Yep. Pisses me off. Sometimes when I find wheelie bins in the middle of the sidewalk I'll kick them out of the way out of frustration. In my home town there's this street where there's literally bins outside every house and you have to do your very best not to get yourself or your cane caught in them. I'm a really fast walker so it's even worse.