As an avid escalator climber-upper, I agree. However, if you’re an adult and your fear of escalators leads you to run up them as quickly as possible, you aren’t doing yourself or anyone around you any favors.
Some parents seem to have this weird idea that lots of public places like stores are safe and acceptable places for their kids to play without the parent watching them. A lot of them seem to think libraries are also good places for unattended kids to play. They must think that watching unattended kids is part of the job description of the store or library employees, or something. Or not- these same parents often get incensed when a store employee tells their kid “don’t do that”. OK, maybe I don’t really understand what they’re thinking, but this is my best shot at explaining it.
As a child, I was always fascinated by escalators and I thought they were much more fun than elevators. I remember figuring out how the sides alternated and intertwined.
Fair enough. But I already had the image of you endlessly falling down the escalator at the same rate as it rose. Funny in a cartoon, not quite as funny in real life.
If you trip with the steps moving you are going down hard and the tread plates on a step are sharp. On a down escalator you will end up going head over heals.
If you trip a safety, someone hits the srop button, or the power goes off you will go down hard, it is just physics.
I worked on the for 20 years and I walk up escalators all the time. But keep a good hand on the hand rail. Watch your feet. And remember someone can turn it off while you are on it.
I love the people who won’t ride an elevator, and ask where the escalators are.
I use to think that there was basket neat escalators for people to put their brains in before getting on the escalator.
IS it okay to walk up (or down) an escalator? I really, REALLY hate those things, but there’s no other way to get up or down in most of the malls.
They aren’t thinking. That’s the problem. Oh, and ask any toy store employee about parents who drop kids off at the store, expecting them to amuse themselves.
I myself get royally pissed off at kids running loose in the grocery store, damaging merchandise, running and screaming. Not only are they annoying to most of the other people in the store, but they’re also putting themselves in danger. Last I heard, grocery stores, or any retail stores, were not designed to be playgrounds.
There have just about GOT to be elevators somewhere in any public place these days that have esclators or stairs.
I’ve never seen a person in a wheel chair forced to use an escalator.
If you really hate those things in the places you frequent, ask someone where the elevator is.