Please Please Keep your dogs on a leash

This is seriously my biggest pet peeve ever. I have dogs, I would love to let them run free. But I don't.. because there are other people with other dogs around. or kids.. or anything else that might possibly distract a dog. So yesterday we were down at City Island with the dogs. We took them down to the river so that Bandit could swim around a bit. There was a guy there with his dog off a leash. So of course the dog came running over to Bandit. (I will mention here that the guy didn't even try to call his dog back) Bandit was not agressive with him, although I did notice that he immediatley placed himself between the other dog and the kids, which I was ultimately proud of. I mean you have dogs for compansionship but you would like to know that ultimately if something happened they would protect you or your kids. Right?
Ok, so anyway.. Bandit was trying to smell the other dog, and was on the leash, so I was not letting him really have any room to get closer to the dog, in fact I was slowly bringing him closer to me. Well to make a long story short the other dog backed into the stroller, and it scared him. Which caused him to yelp and run back to him owner. The owner of the other dog immediately began asking his dog if he was ok. I was genuinely pissed at this point. Why can't people just realize that they make dog leash laws for their safety and our safety as well as for the safety of the dogs.... I really hate irresponsible pet owners..