Oh, bite my pedestrian ass. If you’re walking along 2 abreast and do the “oh I’ll pretend to make room for you, just barely bother,” you need a bump.
Hmmm. Is it against the rules to carry an air horn? And use it?
Oh, please. the OP encounters a woman with a child on the sidewalk who was startled when he surprised her. That’s Pit-worthy? And given human nature, you can be sure the stories are heavily biased and exagerrated. “The baby didn’t get out of the way fast enough!” Right, no chance at all Mr. Quick was just impatient, huh?
Read the thread again.
Wow, someone wanted to go in a different direction. Holy shit, let’s kill them!
My God, a couple walking together. This poster thinks such a sin should result in physical assault.
I did.
And i saw many other posts besides the OP. Guess you must have missed them.
Yeah, that’s the “sin” he talking about—walking together. :rolleyes: Have you been drinking or something?
He was talking, as i was earlier in the thread, about people who walk together AND who refuse to do other pedestrians the common courtesy of staying to one side of the sidewalk so others can pass. AND who refuse to make way even when there is room, and when they know full well that another person needs some space to get by.
Couple of places, Studio city near Mel’s Diner and the general area around the Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel. Again in the Hollywood Blvd and Sunset Blvd area. I can’t think of any other areas. But I never lived in LA, only SD.
Oh, does Venice count as LA, they especially specialize in obstructional walking in Venice. 
Jim
When I was in school, one of the civil engineering professors started working with the chemical engineering dept. on a traffic flow theory – he ended up modeling highway traffic on turbulent flow in a pipe. From what I saw of the project, the model did a pretty darn good job of predicting where traffic would bunch up as highways joined, divided, narrowed, etc.
Hmmm… I’m surprised no one’s mentioned the obvious: develop a gross, disgusting, avian-flu sorta cough. Make it a real phlegm-rattling one. I’ll bet they’ll move… Far.
Note to phouka: nice sig
My pedestrian peeves:
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Walking in a mall in a straight line, and someone cuts across you diagonally, forcing you to dodge them. Sorry, but straight line walkers have right-of-way over diagonal cutters.
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People standing in front of a door, watching you walk right up to them, and waiting for you to say, “Excuse me” before they’ll move from in front of the door. Some day I’m not going to say it; I’m just going to stand there staring them right in the eye.
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Hong Kong walkers might be great, but they need to face up to the fact that here in Canada, we drive AND walk on the right, and pass on the left. I have about six inches on most of the worst offenders, and about twice their weight - I don’t move for them.
If you look at how people drive, it’s really no wonder that people have so many problems with how to walk courteously in a congested area (and this is what we’re griping about here, RickJay, not somebody out for a midnight stroll on a deserted back road).
If someone is walking toward me and they are “in my space” – on my side of the side walk, I will continue to walk until we are close to each other and then I will just stop in place. That forces the other person to either move out of the way or walk right into me. Few people will walk into someone who is standing still.
This technique may annoy a few people, but I suspect that most people get the point – especially those who are walking three and four abreast.
If you say “excuse me” and people don’t seem to hear you, trying mooing. They will notice every time.
The ones suddenly exiting shops onto the footpath in the city without looking are a real pain, as has been already mentioned.
Today, three people who decided that Saturday afternoon in midtown Auckland was a great time to have a catch-up chat. I just wish they hadn’t chosen to have their chat in the middle of a pedestrian refuge island. Wonder how many people dodging around them to reach the pedestrian crossings gave them the idea that they were bloody well in the way?
Damn, that’s a good one. I’ll try that some time.
I’ve done something similar, though not intentionally. 
While walking down a sidewalk in front of a row of stores, I had an allergy attack and began sneezing uncontrollably. I pulled out a tissue from my purse to contain the - uh- products of sneezing, but I noticed the oncoming people were giving me lots and lots and lots of room as they passed.
Zoe, I can honestly say I hadn’t thought of mooing. Maybe barking like a dog will get their attention if I can’t get off a good loud moo.
I hate going through malls and running into the 3-4 abreast groups. They see you coming and don’t move. I refuse to flatten myself against the storefront window so you can all walk side-by-side. I set my shoulder and plow through.
Wish I could borrow Andre the Giant. “Everybody! MOVE!!!”
That’s what I do too. I don’t glare at them or anything-just stop. I’m hoping that something in their lizard brain sector will adapt and learn. Of course, the prospect of slamming into the front of a 200+lb woman-wall makes them very motivated to learn
The fact you would be carrying a corpse would do the trick. 
I walk past or through a university campus on the way to and from work. It’s amazing how many of the kiddies seem to have never walked in a city before (or else they’re from New York, and nowhere else counts as a “city”, so they can stroll like they’re on a lonely country lane).
Honestly, being aware of what’s around you is an issue of safety, not just courtesy. I never walk up behind a student obviously utterly oblivious to my presence (maybe they’re text-messaging and walking at the same time) without thinking, “I hope this one doesn’t walk around much after dark.”
Then there was Princess Shitdontstink strolling across a side street against the red light, in the teeth of traffic, chatting merrily on her cell phone. When a driver ventured to honk at her, she ignored him and explained to the caller, “Some guy honking. Yeah, some people are just assholes…”
Recently I tried to maneuver around two chatting girls coming down 36th St walk towards me. Not wanting to walk between them, I tacked to my right, then my left, but each time they veered to that side, so I moved right again, but the girl facing my right moved away from her friend, so I ended up walking between them after all. And as I did so, the girl on my right said to her friend (over my head), “Well, I have, like, a really hard time making decisions…”
I witnessed something yesterday at the mall that I had to mention in this thread.
An older lady was walking in front of the fountains by the benches outside the stores (where I was sitting), there were a few people around her, but it was obvious she was by herself. There were 4 kids walking in her general direction, and they were pretty spread out. They were probably 15 at the oldest. 3 wouldn’t even have been close to her, but 1 walked straight towards her. She stepped to the side, and he kept walking quickly, but right after he passed her he remarked, “I love how every damn person gets out of my way, it’s great.” I felt bad for the older woman until I saw the kid walk a little further and run into a 6’3" guy who was standing perfectly still, and facing the other direction. I was standing up to go to the food court to purchase a drink, and walking their general direction, after they walked away from the large man, they were complaining about how people take up too much space in the mall walkway.
I love to be an innocent bystander, but damn were those kids annoying. It’s a small mall and I saw them when we went in at 6 in Macy’s and at about 9:45, I saw them again. I had seen them walking around, in and out of stores, but they had bought nothing, or at least hadn’t ever carried any products in bags, so they bought nothing or very little. I’m pretty sure they were there just to annoy holiday shoppers.
Brendon
Or, you know, browsing.
One of the most frightening experiences of my life occured this summer at a stop light. I had the red on the crest of a hill. A couple of kids were chatting on the corner, then decided to cross the 6 lane road. The problem was they were talking though most of their green light. Rather than wait for the next one they just ambled across the street in no hurry whatsoever. The light turned yellow when they hit the median, then red, but they continued walking at the same gait apparently blind to this fact.
A truck came up the hill in the empty lane on the right next to me, not slowing at all because he had the green. The kids were just passing my lane, so they must have been hidden to him. By some small miracle he managed to slam on his brakes with literally inches to spare between his bumper and the kids. Somehow the kids did not notice (or did not care) that they were almost seriously injured and continued on their merry way.
No one at the green light moved for a full 15 seconds as we were all completely shaken up by what almost happened.
Anybody else here run in a big marathon and have a shitload of walkers sort themselves in with the front runners at the start ahead of you?