I can top that.
I was in the grocery store in an aisle with a mother and her two children. The girl was turning cartwheels while mom yakked on her cell phone, browsing the canned soups. I tried to avoid the little athelete, but her foot clipped me. I admit, my “Excuse me!” probably came out a little more sharply than I intended as I was nursing a bruised arm.
“Huh!” the mother exclaimed in tones of righteous indignation. “I wonder what her fuckin’ problem was!”
[Fezzik] HEY EVERYBODY, MOVE! [/Fezzik]
Finally, a simple explanation for why some folks wear waaaaay too much perfume and cologne.
I also work in Chicago - most lunches I run along the lakefront. We have to go maybe 4-5 blocks along sidewalks and streets to get there. Now I know that sidewalks are primarily for walking, not running. And we are very willing to cross (or run in) the street when it is an option. But all we ask is enough space to slip by. In order to do so, we really appreciate it when people actually walk in something resembling a straight line.
Perhaps we are rude, but after years of this we pretty much just announce our intentions and then run through. It is amazing when you call out “On your left” from several strides away, and then pass someone on their left saying “Thanks” as you pass, and they jump as though they narrowly escaped death, and yell stuff after you.
Or people will be coming at you, taking up the entire sidewalk. I and my buddy fall into single file and move to one side, and they make NO movement to give up an inch of the way - if they even look forwrd enough to see you coming. It seems as tho they figure that everyone else will automatically get out of their way. Running nearly every day, it seriously seems so unusual for someone to see you coming towards them and actually do something to share the sidewalk, that we always say “thanks.” Happens maybe once or twice a week, out of the hundreds of folk we pass.
At times we have called out “Share the sidewalk” - thinking to educate people who simply did not know better. But I recall one instance where a family of 5 or so was sprawled across an entire sidewalk. There was an adult kneeling down to tie the shoelace of a kid in a stroller placed at an angle smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk, with 1 or 2 people standing around on either side. Seriously, if they had tried to block the sidewalk, I don’t know that they could have done so more effectively. Moreover, the way this sidewalk is set up (Congress, just west of Michigan) there are these columns that give you all kinds of niches to get to the side and out of the way of traffic. In this instance, because there were kids involved and we thought they honestly might not know any better - we slowed down and called out “Share the sidewalk, please.” They made NO effort to move, and instead yelled out disparaging remarks as we passed.
Here’s another wrinkle that may not have been expressly noted before. How about the concept that when 2 sidewalks intersect there may actually be someone moving along the other walk. I’m not saying you need to necessarily stop and give way to the other people, but why is it so uncommon for people to even cast a glance in either direction?
Saw a nice one this a.m. in the train station. 2 guys were standing talking on one side of the flow of pedestrian traffic outside a Starbucks. A steady stream of pedestrians were flowing around them. When they ended their conversation one guy stepped into the Starbucks, and the other guy turned and without looking started heading down the walkway. You guessed it - there was another guy coming right at him just about to step around him, and the talker turned right into him. I wonder if that guy has any idea that how he conducted himself was in the least bit inconsiderate.
There is a multi-use path near me that on sunny summer afternoons gets quite a bit of use. It comfortably fits two people abreast so there is often lots of calls of “on your left” or the sounds of bicycle bells. In other words, I fully expect, and it is usually the case, that people are very aware that the path is frequently used and should be on the lookout for people wanting to pass.
One fine sunny afternoon I was biking on the path and about a 1/4 mile ahead of me I noticed a couple on their bikes patiently waiting for the group of ahead of them to move out of the way. The group was two mothers pushing baby strollers side by side with a dad hanging out nearby. It took quite a while to break ranks and form a single file so the bikers could pass. By this time, I was probably 50 yards behind them and gaining fast, but they didn’t look to see if anyone else was coming and just fell back into formation. Deciding I really didn’t want to wait for them I just passed them on their right on a bit of grass. I wasn’t within 2 feet of them but one of the mothers decided I needed to be reprimanded anyway. I yelled something back and kept going. I really wish I had stopped and told her what I was really thinking.
I read the first three posts here and immediately felt my blood pressure rising, so I’ll just leave with the comment “I concur with this OP.”
You ignore the Simpsons at your peril.
Jasper: Slow down. The sidewalk’s for regular walking, not for fancy walking.
Slightly tangential story my daughter told me. She was in NYC, and there was a section of sidewalk where, because of construction barriers and the like, there was really only room for one person, and access to the street was blocked. A person in front of her had an obvious inability to walk quickly. Not being a jerk, just doing the best she could. A perky duo of joggers come up behind and are forced to slow down until the sidewalk widens. As they finally zip past, my daughter overhears one of them say, “Don’t you just hate it when people walk so slow just because they can’t go any faster?” in all seriousness.
I tell you, it’s just disgraceful that some people don’t march in a perfectly straight line at a high rate of speed at all times. And to think they dawdle in MALLS! And spend time, say, looking at products in the stores! The nerve of them.
If that’s all you got from the complaints in this thread, you may not have quite the level of intelligence and reading comprehension that i had taken for granted from you previously.
NY Dopers, do people do this in Manhattan? (Not counting obstructed sidewalks.) 35 years ago I spent a summer as a messenger, pre-bike messengers, so I spent a lot of time on the streets. I walk fast, even for NY, and I don’t recall morons blocking the sidewalk being a problem. Still true?
We’ve had a bunch of threads on people blocking supermarkets. I just had another frustrating experience. Our coffe room is not a room, but a narrow space between a counter and the sink. (Bad, bad, design.) I went in there the other day to wash out my cup, and three guys were having a serious discussion, blocking the sink and basically the entire room. When I came in, coffee cup in hand, and stood by the sink, absolutely no reaction. I just gave up - I don’t want to tell co-workers what I think of them in a situation like this, and an “excuse me” would have been icy to say the least.
Wow, I pictured a mom and her daughter out for a stroll, and kids tend to wander around and not in a straight line. If there’s enough room for them to do that and impede only one person, AND she thought there was no one there, it couldn’t have been chuckabluck full of other pedestrians? And if she was lost in the fun of wandering with her daughter, with something else on her mind, I could see she would be startled. Full-volume screaming sounds excessive though!
If I were a nanny with someone else’s kid in tow I’d be even more paranoid about someone coming up behind me.
I found NYC to be the one place, where I might be the impediment to foot traffic. Any other city, even Chicago, moves at a slower general pace. Philly is pretty good and Minneapolis was surprisingly good. I was pleased with the walking pace.
San Diego & LA are hopeless and San Fran & Vancouver were better than average. Florida Cities and New Orleans are extra slow. Baltimore was pretty good. Hoboken was very good. NYC speed.
Just a quick general impression.
Jim
Like the guy about a month ago who decided the best place in the entire gym to jump rope was right in front of the mirror where the dumbells are racked. He even had to move a couple of benches of the way to do it and he wasn’t actually using any of the dumbells he was in front of. People carrying dumbells are having to dodge around this jerk to put them back on the rack and noone could pick up the ones in front of him until he was done. Unbelievable.
This bunch I’ve had it with! For the 2-abreast crowd, I head straight for the middle. If anyone is getting maneuvered into a wall or the street, it ain’t gonna be me. And those idiot halves of the 2-abreasts who see you coming and “almost” leave you enough space to get by? Bump them. Let them know that when you’re taking up more than your fair share of the sidewalk, the onus is entirely on you to get out of the way.
[QUOTE=cmosdes]
There is a multi-use path near me that on sunny summer afternoons gets quite a bit of use. It comfortably fits two people abreast so there is often lots of calls of “on your left” or the sounds of bicycle bells. In other words, I fully expect, and it is usually the case, that people are very aware that the path is frequently used and should be on the lookout for people wanting to pass.
QUOTE]
If they’re oncoming, loudly announce your presence thusly:
Ma’am, you’ll have to move!
And ride toward them so they understand you’re not going to swerve. I’m talking about people on the wrong side of the path and taking up too much room.
I get indignant at oblivious people too, but occasionally I am the one who is lost in thought, unaware of the person behind me. Of course, if those persons clear their throat or say, “Excuse me,” I quickly step aside.
Actually you’re letting them know that you are the asshole and that they were (by comparison) perfectly in the right and doing nothing wrong.
Just in case you were under the delusion that you were actually fighting ignorance with your chosen actions.
Me, I amble, lost in thought. I’m in no bloody hurry. But I don’t take up an entire sidewalk and I generally stay somewhere on the right half. So if you’re still not happy then tough luck!
Where the Hell did you find people walking in LA?
From their car into the gym, where they use a treadmill for an hour and then walk back to their car to drive the 1/2 mile home.