I get your point about not wanting to reduce speed, but it's worth considering how the law might react in a worse-case scenario.

Here in the UK, there was an infamous case of Charlie Alliston who ended up getting a ridiculous 18 months prison sentence after colliding with a pedestrian who hit her head and subsequently died. He was riding a "fixie" without a front brake and was cycling at around 18mph through some green traffic lights. The pedestrian was crossing the road further on (i.e. not at a junction which is fairly normal) and wasn't paying enough attention, so Charlie shouted at her to get out of his way. He started to reduce speed (rear brake only), but then decided that he could just aim for the gap behind her, but she then reacted to his shouting by stepping backwards into his path.

The point is that the judge awarded such a tough sentence partly due to Charlie not taking all available actions to avoid a collision and also because his bike was illegal to use on the road due to having just one brake. So, if you rely on a bell to clear your path, you could be held liable if they don't respond and you collide.

> With cars, I will sometimes proactively ring my bell at them if I think they're not sufficiently aware enough of me though.

There's only a few types of car that will be "aware" of cyclists and I don't think ringing a bell will help their algorithms. Getting the attention of a driver, meanwhile, is difficult with a bell as often they'll be in a semi-soundproof cage with loud music on. (Also deaf drivers are a thing).

I've never really considered using a bell for motorised traffic. I did once buy a loud air-horn, but it was so loud and abrasive that I never used it as it seemed really rude.

How about the British "Till Death Do Us Part" from the 1960s/70s?

That had a similar irony in that people complained about the racist character of Alf Garnett, but the series very much used his bigotism/racism as the butt of the jokes.