[quote name='swee'pea99']Depends what you call 'a road' I suppose. Did you have a point?[/QUOTE]
You made the rather dubious claim that "we have created roads for wheeled vehicles travel on...", which does not apply to all roads even now and certainly doesn't in the historical context. The fundamental point that you missed, as originally made by theclaud, is that roads are part of public space and there need be no automatic presumption that their primary function is the conveyance of wheeled vehicles. There are certainly lots of roads where vehicular transport is the primary purpose, but that isn't true of residential streets for example. And on those sort of roads there is no reason why drivers couldn't be expected to drive at walking pace with no more or less priority than pedestrians. It is only your unquestioned presumption that cars always have to be a fast mode that makes you assume that pedestrians should always have keep out of their way.
You also said "There is plenty of provision for us when we want to travel on foot - and it is up to us to use it sensibly.". Actually pedestrian provision is pretty awful in a lot of places, leading to community severance and pedestrian causalities, which fall disproportionately on the least well off who usually live in places most heavily affected by other people's traffic. Note that the UK has one of the worst child pedestrian casualty rates. It is all very well to talk pompously about using the road 'sensibly', but if you create an intrinsically hazardous environment it is wholly unreasonable to shift the burden of responsibility onto the most vulnerable, especially children.