Having read only the first post I will be more aware of folks wanting to walk past me on the escalator. Never do it myself, Mother told me I would fall and die. 
BTW, I would suggest “excuse me, I’m sick” as the lingua Franca to get past someone in various situations.
Works even better if you appear to be barely choking down the urge to vomit.
Ok, maybe I’m just a slow dense and probably fat Southerner but, what the hell does this have to do with anything in this thread? If your’re implying that the slow, take it easy lifestyle I describe as being common in my experience leads to obesity then your own list sorta rules that out with the entries for Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, New York and Las Vegas… you know… half the friggin list and all places likely to see the escalator walkers from what I see here.
An attempt at levity?
A broader interest in the wider controversy?
I KNEW I should have put two smileys in that post.
Side by side? Or would you have them both standing to the right in case another smiley wanted to get past them?
:mad:
Jesus, that’s funny.
And levity was had.
Now, really, what looks better?
…
…
:smack:…
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or
:D…
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:D…
…
…
Yeah, I bet it is accompanied by a “please” 90% or more in other than competitive situations. I first learned it on a multi-use bike path. I think it is so common - at least in my area, that I have seen folks w/ shirts saying “On yer left.”
In most situations, people tend to stay towards the right anyway. and as long as you aren’t going super fast - or they aren’t exceptionally clueless and unpredictable, it’s almost more of an acknowledgement that you are passing now. And when you say it calmly from the direction where the other guy can tell which side you are coming from, you’ll avoid the startle reaction. The vast majority of times you know there is enough room to pass there, and you are just basically trying to be polite and not surprise anyone. But it is just so consistent with so much else - driving, walking, etc. - that it is a ersuasive meme for me that traffic shold generally stay towards the right if possible. Just in case anyone - a speeder, someone in a hurry, an emergency vehicle … wants through.
I can’t imagine a more condescending and dismissive way to summarize other people’s opinion. Nobody here is measuring their happiness in seconds they save at the mall, they’re bitching about an unnecessary annoyance from simps that don’t comprehend the concept of getting out of other people’s way because it’s a decent thing to do.
If you’re walking down the sidewalk and I intentionally block your way for 30 seconds, you’d be pissed off, right? Why? The 30 seconds obviously isn’t the issue.
Holy crap! I thought this baby was done dead! Thank you! Thank you!
You’ll be here all week?
Did you bother to read the fucking sentence right after the one I posted? The one about my midset being lazy and alien to the walkers? Try again, try harder. I then elaborate about the kinds of escalators I generally find in my experience and how they are used. You know… context for the passage you picked out, and I did say I would allow people to walk past me if they asked but it has NEVER happened to me in all my times using an escalator because people generally… in my experience, HERE anyways tend to treat it as unnecessary to save precious seconds by walking up an escalator. The polite, correct and thoughtful thing to do HERE by custom that I have observed is to wait your fucking turn, step dilligently onto the escalator and wait in place to be delivered to the floor above you, then you step off immediately and proceed briskly towards your destination. In fact… I’ll go one further… the unwritten but generally observed custom here seems to be to give people at least one but usually two steps of personal space around the one they’re standing on. Getting right up behind somebody you don’t know on the step in front of you would be a bit rude and might provoke somebody to take a single step up to maintain a polite distance. Sorta like using a urinal in my experience. In emergencies or in other cities with massive public transporation the customs appear to differ greatly, in which case I would observe local custom but where I live, escalator walking would be vaguely rude. In short (I know, too late), because this is the pit… bite me.
Sure, but you still miss the point: you’re acknowledging that your mindset may be alien to the walkers, but you still seem to want to believe that the walkers have an “I MUST SAVE 30 SECONDS BECAUSE MY TIME IS SO PRECIOUS” mindset, which is basically a willful misinterpretation made to sound ridiculous. It’s not necessarily about saving “precious seconds”, it’s about not sitting around watching the wall creep by.
Why not? Ok then… I amend my post to reflect people that want to save precious seconds AND people who lack the patience to stand still for the time it takes to ride an elevator up or down one floor. I will say most of the posts that are pro-walking do seem to reflect a “I don’t want to waste time, I’m in a hurry, I have things to do and stopping isn’t one of them, seconds might mean I’m late” attitude rather than simply a general preference for walking over standing. I really just do not get that mindset, sorry and it’s not willful misinterpretation it’s the only interpretation I can make out of the rational for people walking up escalators which in my experience is simply not done.
Duuude! You didn’t know?! You got the tryout version. I have the same problem as you, but as I’ve already said elsewhere on these boards, I to pretty to get my ass kicked.
Ah, shee-it! **Now ** I understand what other Dopers mean when they complain about hitting the wrong keys, thus submitting their posts before they were finished.
Anyway, as I was saying, I Am Simply Too Pretty To Get My Ass Kicked™, so the balls are in your hands now. If you’re not shitting your teeth in a few weeks, then I’ll be happy to try those balls myself.
(No, not yours, specifically. Well, then again…nah, you might not live in New Jersey, anyway.) 
Yeah, I’m going now.
Can you conceive of a group of people who pull into a Mall parking lot and park in the first open spot they see because it is quicker to park far and walk in then to circle and stalk and look for that close spot? Can you conceive that part of this is that the longer walk is also better exercise? Can you conceive that fast walking through a mall and even up an escalator is again better exercise? There are many people not trying to save 30 seconds, but just are not of the mindset to amble. This is true of many places, but seems to be extra prevalent of almost anyone born or raised in NYC and its large metro area.
Yes, in looks like we rush around to an ambling person, but this is just the pace we were raised to move. This includes walking, driving, and using escalators. You will also find us looking uncomfortable and impatient in southern stores as the cashiers take what feels like forever to ring up orders and an additional person takes a long time to do a poor job of bagging. We might even say something that is probably rude by southern standard. “Oh, here, please let me bag it myself, I know how I want everything”.
This is just how many of us were raised. We do not move at the same sedate pace that some southerners pride themselves on, but we do not consider our movements frantic. To us they are normal. So remember when you see people rushing through a Mall or Airport or train station, they might not be late; they might not be desperately trying to save a few minutes. They might just move fast in general.
Jim
Can it be both?