How fast you can go depends in part upon the road. You need to ride differently through an alleyway – with sudden turns, open drains, unexpected pets and people – than you might on a side street, or a main road, or a motorway.
You might want to go faster that the road allows – you might actually push the limit and succeed in going faster for a while – but the chances are that sooner or later someone or something will step out in front of you and you’ll need to make a sudden stop. There will be a mix of surprise, embarrassment, annoyance. There may be anger and blame, especially if someone else gets hurt because you were in a hurry.
It is true that they should have looked before they stepped out… and it is still your fault, because really you knew the speed the road allowed.
In teams, we can’t always go as fast as we’d like. If we want to go faster we’re obliged to take the time to build better roads before we do.