I’m a LAN support guy IRL - so I’m pretty busy at work usually (except during the occasional SDMB break). So that means I walk quickly from point A to point B when I’m in a hurry to get something done. Invariably - I almost run over some mouth breather who can’t figure out why he or she almost gets creamed whenever rounding a corner on the left hand side of the hall. Here’s a tip: WALK ON THE DAMN RIGHT OR START WEARING A COW BELL SO I CAN HEAR YOU COMING.
My favorite instances of this are when someone is not only walking on the wrong side, but they’re also not paying attention, so when they almost hit me it startles them and they stumble into a cubicle wall. Makes it all worth it
Has the government released a highway code equivalent for pedestrians or something? Is walking on the right in your company contract?
No?
Then I suggest you do what I do and simply avoid people as best you can. Ranting at people who are diobeying a walkway law that only exists in your head is not really on.
Old people who walk 5 abreast on the pavement however - now that’s another story. Ferkrissakes, if you’re going to walk at 0.5mph then please leave room for other people to get past you.
Mind you, when I’m old I fully intend to inconvenience people as much as possible.
When I was in elementary school (K-6), this was drilled into us from kindergarten on. “Walk on the right side of the hall!” We all lined up to walk to lunch, always on the right. If you were seen walking on the left, someone would tell you- always walk on the right!
Too bad everyone didn’t get that education. It drives me batshit to almost run into someone who rounds a blind turn in a hallway and then is shocked that I’m there. Walk on the damned right and we won’t have these problems! Get a clue!
Yes, but this is an example of what I am saying. In your school it was drilled into you to walk on the right. Maybe in somebody else’s school the custom was to walk on the left and right now they’re cursing your name for always walking on the wrong damn side of the hall! Or (more likely) maybe simply noone ever told them to walk on the right.
If it isn’t a universal (and there is no reason to assume that it is) then you can’t really bawl people out for it.
Slacker - OK, I’ll concede that you Yanks may have Devious Foreign Habits that we wouldn’t know about here in heroic Blighty. But the fact that so many people there by your own admission apparently do seem oblivious to this universally accepted custom indicates that perhaps it isn’t quite so universal as you may think.
Flymaster, I’ll let you into a little secret - in my school they also made us walk on the right!. This confused me no end, as all right*-thinking people know that the truly noble, smart, handsome etc will always choose to drive on the left hand side of the road. I suspect that the head teacher was a communist. Or possibly a nazi.
But anyway, when I left school I used to get mightily annoyed with those who didn’t obey this simple rule. Until one day the message I am trying to impart dawned on me - maybe they just don’t know. After all, they are but simple fools and may well be blind to the niceties of human conduct. One should not rage at them for this - no, one should pity them instead.
I wondered about this when I visited London last month (yeah, I’m a yank, but I love England).
When wandering around the city, I couldn’t figure out which side of the sidewalk to walk there at all. In crowded areas in particular, like the Tube stations, people just walked on any which side they pleased. Of course, I suppose once it gets really crowded any tenuous grip on the rules of walking get pitched anyway.
Ah, well, on the tube, you see, the rules of walking are thus:
“Get the FUCK out of my way”
You’ll soon get the hang of it.
Bizarrely enough though, people are well behaved on the escalators. Stand on the right, walk on the left. And people actually do it. To the extent of giving Very Dirty Looks* to those who don’t. It’s quite remarkable to see such a short-tempered, embittered, huge mass of humanity obey a courtesy rule.
Hmmmmm…
I guess I went to the same school as Slacker, and all of the people I have ever met (except for the brain dead zombies who have to read the instructions printed on the heel when pouring piss out of their shoes) must have gone to the same school as well. It must have been a bitch and a half to transport all the Germans over just to learn to walk on the right side of the hall, not to mention the logistics nightmare of getting all of the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and Spanish (these are just the places I have been and can vouch for) over to that one school. There must also be some kind of special school for tourists to the USA, since I have seen Indians (people from India, I mean,) Arabs, Africans, Chinese, Japanese, Braziliens, Mexicans, and Australiens wandering the halls of many an American business, all miraculously walking down the right side of the hall.
Or maybe there is a simpler explanation:
All of the people I have referred to are simply courteous, and keep their asses over to the side so that other people can get by them without there having to be some kind of arm waving negotiation of the right of way.
I’d say the “walk on the right” rule is pretty universal, and it is only the spermbrained fuckwits who wander through life cluelessly getting in other people’s way.
Well if all the people you’ve ever met know this, then there’s no problem is there?
Of course it’s courteous to keep over to one side. But I hardly think that there’s a universal understanding of which that side is. I always keep over to the side. It isn’t necessarily the right hand side.
If lots of people are moving together, one side tends to get naturally picked, since people follow eachother. But on the tube (for example, since it was mentioned earlier), that side will fluctuate from right to left and back again as you travel through the tunnels.
Anyway, even if every school in the world taught its pupils to walk on the right, there’s still nothing to suggest that it should be established practice in the outside world too. Or do you always raise your hand before speaking, or ask to go to the toilet or take your jacket off (last one for the UK contingent more than the US methinks). Plenty of school practices are simply conventions used at school.
A friend of mine who teaches high school uses this behavior to determine who is driving and who isn’t. Kids who drive walk on the right and hesitate to pull out of traffic. Kids who don’t walk wherever they want and have little care for the flow.
A few years ago when I was plodding home from work, there was a guy walking toward me about a half a block up. I sorta moved over just as he sort of moved over, and then we both noticed we were on a collision course, and grinned and did the same…it was absolutely uncanny how we kept doing this when we were a half block away (yet closing in on each other). We’d each wait for the other to move, then when the interval seemed to have gone on too long, we’d decide the other one had left it up to us, so we’d each move… it was incredible and embarrassing. As we finally passed I flashed him a sheepish grin and he snarled at me “Where do you think we are, England?”
It was then that I realized that he’d been trying to walk to his right, expecting me to walk to my right, so we’d pass easily. And I wasn’t getting it because I wasn’t in my car.
I am afraid that you have missed the point. It isn’t necessarily that the schools are teaching anyone this. It just seems to be a universal kind of thing that people from all over the world DO. Except for the dumbasses and shitheads, of course.
And wasn’t there talk a little while back about putting lines on the sidewalk in a busy shopping district in London? There was to be one lane for loitering, and another for walking (2 directions in 1 lane!). At least it’s a step [sub]groan[/sub] in the right direction.
Yes, yes, yes. If only the message would get through to the idiots riding those long moving walkways at airports. Stand to the right, and keep your damn luggage over there too. Walk to the left. The instructions are even painted on the walkway, with a yellow line down the middle. How dumb can you get? Especially after a dozen people have already had to say “excuse me” and squeeze past them.
