# Do you confront line-skippers? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 18, 2018, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032 "2018-02-18T03:12:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/21 "2018-02-18T08:56:31Z")
> [@Isosleepy](#): > > Qft. When will people learn? Use all lanes till merge point. QFT again. Ideally the two lanes are balanced at about equal length. Once I was in a merge pattern like that where the two lanes were alternately taking turns as they ought. While waiting my turn, I composed a haiku: Two traffic lanes merge into one. Silent zipper invisibly zips. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/22 "2018-02-18T08:58:08Z")
I don’t see it very often but yes I’ll speak up. One time, with a queue of several loaded trolleys at a checkout a latecomer asked the person in front me if they could go in front of them as they were in a hurry and didn’t have as much stuff (they had quite a lot) ,the person ahead of me said yes. At which point I pointed out that it would be fine as long as they were willing to take the latecomers position at the back of the queue. They seemed a bit confused by this but I pointed out that I was in a hurry as well and possibly all those behind me were too and their little collusion was making us all even later. So I said either \*you \*go to the back or _you_ do. The latecomer relented. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/23 "2018-02-18T09:00:41Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > … If I see it happening I put my foot down and make that vulture wait forever. Sometimes authority goes to my head. I admit it. Was that foot wearing a sparkly jackboot? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/24 "2018-02-18T10:42:30Z")
> [@Biotop](#): > > So you are on the 4 lane highway and suddenly all cars are slowing down. There is obviously some traffic accident/problem up ahead. The correct move is to slide into one of the lines that you hope will move. And then you wait. It is not proper to keep switching lanes if one line seems to be moving faster. It is not proper to slide into the soon-to- be- vanishing lane that has emptied out as multiple lanes move into fewer lanes. You should not ever attempt to continue in the closing merge-from lane to pass slow rolling cars until you get to the obstruction and then nose your way into the line. Decent people realize everyone’s time is valuable and thus do not try to jockey position to shorten a fair wait. What you’re up against is that there really is no generally agreed-upon behavior for motorists in pretty much any situation. We all have different notions in our head about what the rules of appropriate road behavior should be. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/25 "2018-02-18T11:41:09Z")
It happened on occasion in Japan. My train started in Shinjuku and people would nicely queue but occasionally someone would stand by the front of the line. Most Japanese don’t call out bad behavior, but I found that loudly giving an exaggerated etiquette lesson would usually embarrass the would-be jumper. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/26 "2018-02-18T11:42:23Z")
This rarely happens, but I never confront anyone over it. I’m never in a hurry anyway so I file it under the “meh” column and let 'em go on. If the store were to allow this constantly I’d just shop elsewhere. Ditto for traffic. The actual time difference between my lane and the one that _seems_ to be faster is rarely much. Occasionally an extra car will squeeze in during a “zipper” situation and the car behind me starts yelling and honking, but: a) I’m not a cop and I don’t control traffic and, b) my truck weighs over 8000 lbs. – your opinion doesn’t interest me. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/27 "2018-02-18T12:48:58Z")
I used to ship a lot of packages at the Post Office. I would show up at about 10 minutes to opening time, and be pretty much first in line, with 40 people showing up at opening time. One time, a young woman parked next to me at the door. When they unlocked it, she ran in and jumped to a window like she was going to a Who concert. I strolled right up behind her, and was having none of that. She tried to get right behind me, but the crowd was in unison, and she ended up going to the back of the line. I could feel her laser beam eyes burning up the back of my head. Ha! ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/28 "2018-02-18T13:10:10Z")
Don’t underestimate the powers of old people in this scenario. Often they will guilelessly “wander” into a frontal position in a line, professing bemusement when called upon. You HAVE to kick them in the knees to take them down, or they’ll never learn nothin’. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/29 "2018-02-18T13:28:18Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Don’t underestimate the powers of old people in this scenario. Often they will guilelessly “wander” into a frontal position in a line, professing bemusement when called upon. You HAVE to kick them in the knees to take them down, or they’ll never learn nothin’. Hah! This reminds me of the time a little old man cut in front of my sister in me in line. “I’ll kick his cane”, she whispered, “and you shove him aside”. mmm ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/30 "2018-02-18T13:31:12Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Hah! This reminds me of the time a little old man cut in front of my sister in me in line. “I’ll kick his cane”, she whispered, “and you shove him aside”. > mmm LOL. Reminds me of a teenaged friend who parked in a handicapped space at the mall. When I protested, he said" You limp, I’ll drool". ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/31 "2018-02-18T14:45:19Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > The lane is there to be driven on, not to be looked at. If everyone’s time is valuable, the best way to honor that is to not push the backup farther down the road by pretending that the lane ends before it really does. I disagree. The same number of cars must pass through the bottleneck point. The order through the bottleneck should be the order arrived at by those who approach the bottleneck per order of arrival to the overall slowdown of all our cars. That rate through the actual bottleneck will not change by swerving around cars who have already determined the proper open lane. This is instead line jumping and the anonymity afforded by being in a car does not change civil behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/32 "2018-02-18T14:49:02Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > What you’re up against is that there really is no generally agreed-upon behavior for motorists in pretty much any situation. We all have different notions in our head about what the rules of appropriate road behavior should be. Well now we have the correct rule. 🙂 The correct notion is not to see how you can get through fastest, but to see how we can get through fastest. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/33 "2018-02-18T14:56:18Z")
> [@Biotop](#): > > I disagree. The same number of cars must pass through the bottleneck point. The order through the bottleneck should be the order arrived at by those who approach the bottleneck per order of arrival to the overall slowdown of all our cars. That rate through the actual bottleneck will not change by swerving around cars who have already determined the proper open lane. This is instead line jumping and the anonymity afforded by being in a car does not change civil behavior. This is one issue that it boggles my mind how so many otherwise intelligent people don’t seem to think through. The so-called zipper merge can only work if the cars in both lanes are spaced out as though they were in one line to begin with. And even then at best it will be just slightly slower than if everyone were single file to begin with. Unless someone can come up with a magic way to create a space between two cars without slowing down everyone behind them. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/34 "2018-02-18T15:00:31Z")
Depends on what kind of mood I’m in. That is, I will if I’m in a good mood, because I know I’ll be able to keep my wits about me and handle it with grace. If I’m in a bad mood I know I’ll end up dropping an F-bomb, so I just stand there and stew in it. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/35 "2018-02-18T15:21:44Z")
I don’t encounter them that often in the first place. I am fairly big and have a deep voice but I am also polite so I just tell them what the situation is when it comes up. They almost always oblige so there is no need to “confront” anyone. I would just let them go first anyway if it ever came to that because it isn’t something worth getting mad about. Getting angry about perceived petty slights is for lesser people. However, I had someone accuse me of it once at Whole Foods (the horror!). I was standing in line for a long time when the professionally dressed guy behind me suddenly went berserk and loudly proclaimed that I cut him in line even though there was no way to do that and I was standing there the entire time. I told him that I wasn’t capable of teleportation yet but I was working on it. He was furious and would not back down. Luckily, the cashier witnessed the whole thing and admonished me not to teleport in line ever again. That seemed to satisfy the psycho. I just felt bad for his family. It is a bit of a tangent but Whole Foods has some of the most insane and nastiest customers on the planet. That is one of many bad episodes I have experienced and I won’t shop there anymore simply because of their customers. The stores themselves and employees are great but they attract the angriest extreme liberals this side of Berkeley. I have better stuff to do than hang out with a bunch of self-entitled, enraged white people. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/36 "2018-02-18T15:29:06Z")
> [@Max\_the\_Immortal](#): > > I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed someone cutting in line. At least not since elementary school. Sames. I am almost completely certain that almost every case someone here is describing as someone trying to cut in line was a simple misunderstanding. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/37 "2018-02-18T15:36:45Z")
Just as a data point: here in China there is almost no queue ettiquette and people brazenly slide in front of others or just go directly to the head of the line. Cars will go the wrong way down the road to get ahead of a queue of traffic, and people pile on to trains as other people are trying to get off. Anyway, the relevance to this thread is that I’ve had to really adjust my mindset. In my native UK, someone pushing in means they sized you up, think you’re a soft-touch and have decided today to be an asshole. In China, it’s just people are focused on themselves and don’t know any better. Not that it’s OK, but if I got angry every time I would have had a breakdown ten times over. Plus I reckon most people would struggle to even understand what they did wrong, as pushing is that common. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/38 "2018-02-18T16:11:45Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > What you’re up against is that there really is no generally agreed-upon behavior for motorists in pretty much any situation. We all have different notions in our head about what the rules of appropriate road behavior should be. Exactly. In most traffic circumstances, it is most efficient if everyone just agreed to merge at a single merge point instead of the dozens of merge points that happen when people don’t use the lane to the end. (If the traffic is flowing rather freely, then it usually is better for everyone just to merge in advance.) We’ve been over this a million times, and there’s studies showing this. “Traffic” by Thomas Vanderbilt is one of the more popularly cited books. But rather than continue the discussion here, search the SDMB as it’s been hashed and rehashed. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/39 "2018-02-18T16:26:31Z")
I haven’t witnessed any flat-out queue jumping in a long time, but there are other behaviors that I see a lot that annoy me: One person holding a place in line while their three friends go through the store; and then just as place holder reaches the front they show up with four peoples’ worth of goods and since they’re “together” they all jump up to where place holder is. The hedge better: someone is sorta-kinda in line waiting to see which checkout lane is going to move fastest. I’ve confronted these people to the extent of asking “are you in line here?” and then getting in line either in back of them or not. The not-exactly-in-line crowd that will suddenly solidify into a line which I am now not in. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032/40 "2018-02-18T16:31:44Z")
> [@Biotop](#): > > I disagree. The same number of cars must pass through the bottleneck point. The order through the bottleneck should be the order arrived at by those who approach the bottleneck per order of arrival to the overall slowdown of all our cars. That rate through the actual bottleneck will not change by swerving around cars who have already determined the proper open lane. This is instead line jumping and the anonymity afforded by being in a car does not change civil behavior. Yes, but not pushing a backup miles down the road is worthy in its own right, regardless of the efficiency of traffic flow through the choke point. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-confront-line-skippers/809032.md?page=3)