Vehicles should avoid pedestrians in crosswalks regardless of right-of-way. After all many pedestrians are senile or otherwise of diminished capacity. I certainly wouldn't want anyone running over any of my elderly relatives. However, I recommend against deliberate "cut off" attempts. You might find them quite entertaining most of the time. The rest of the time someone will be injured, and it won't necessarily be the cyclist.

As someone who both walks and bikes a lot (currently in NYC): Bikes often run lights when they shouldn't, and that's dangerous and shitty. But even more often than that, pedestrians stride out into the intersection against the light in front of a bike that's riding through with a green light. Pedestrians stop for cars, but many don't think bikes are worth stopping for no matter what. The problem is on all ends (and as I said in my other post, systemic)

Everyone, no matter their means of transit, should try to prevent collisions. You're endangering yourself and others if you don't.

So, I like to fall back to the law here, which says something along the lines of '[all vehicles should conduct themselves in a controlled manner, in which they can stop for a pedestrian at any time]'.

To that end, I still feel the biker is compelled (and actually is, legally so) to, ultimately, stop for the pedestrian striding out into the intersection on a green, if necessary. And I feel no sympathy for the biker, should he hit the pedestrian.

That said, I think it's entirely in-line for the biker to give a chewing out to the lackadaisical pedestrian who's disobeying traffic regulations.

It's funny that you fall back to the law here but ignore it when you plan to beat the living piss out of people.

They shouldn't be hitting you, but just the same, the law says you shouldn't be hitting them, except in situations where you are under some imminent threat. I doubt a cyclist that has just collided with a pedestrian has plans to continue the attack.

You seem to be suffering from an obnoxious case of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'esprit_de_l'escalier

It helps when you can put a name on these things and auto-correct.

Esprit de l'escalier applies to the retort you'd apply after an encounter ... but didn't.

Aggressive assertion of one's legal rights isn't that.

Since I am hardly ever a pedestrian, I really didn't give consideration to what a horror the lack of standard behavior of bikes would be for people on foot.

You have literally been collided with by a guy on a bike?