Hacker News Reader

Comment by cbanek | Hacker News Reader

I have sidewalk rage. But it's not really about having people walk slower. What gets me is when people have no situational awareness (on their phones, mostly), and are walking very slowly because of that. Then they tend to clump in groups and take the whole sidewalk and won't move over to let you pass, even if you're walking in the opposite direction. I think it's inconsiderate. Same for deciding to gather your whole family right in front of the airport bathroom, just to make it harder for everyone else entering and exiting. I'm always amazed how people tend to aggregate and stop in the worst places (intersections, tight spaces, in the middle rather than out of the way). Traffic patterns are really quite amazing and I think a great source of understanding human nature.

View on HN

Preach it my friend! This drives me insane! The situation you left out that raises my hackles is people congregating in a group in a hallway. Lots of people are trying to get by and they have to squeeze through small openings. It's insanely rude to block a thoroughfare!

Then they tend to clump in groups and take the whole sidewalk and won't move over to let you pass, even if you're walking in the opposite direction.

I think there should be a painted line, like they do have in some high-traffic areas in Asia, to show where the "opposite lane" is.

Of course, the other thing that really irritates me is when I'm moving in one direction along with everyone else who is also keeping to the right (replace with left if you're reading this from a "keep left" country), and encounter someone head-on, going the completely wrong way counter to the flow. I usually gesture to such people by pointing left, and refuse to let them pass on my right.

Fortunately people are mostly a bit more organised when they're driving...

The low speeds involved in walking mean we can allocate resources way more efficiently that using lanes.

If more people are walking in one direction than the other, more space is naturally allocated to them.

If you're "merging" from the left, you can pass on that side until you can get to the right instead of waiting to do a left turn, often without slowing anyone down.

Rigid rules are good at stopping catastrophic collisions, they aren't so good at optimizing use of a complex resource like a sidewalk. Consider how things like telephone polls make some areas of the sidewalk 'less valuable' and natural passing/turning/collector lanes.

Even though Japan has raised tiles to indicate traffic sides and painted lines to indicate bike lanes, I've (surprisingly) found that they're not obeyed as frequently as it would seem. Walking on your left or right side seems to change depending on the location too, along with which side of the escalator is for standing and which is for walking.

Or a group of 3-4 people occupying the whole sidewalk coming towards(infront) of you, they see you coming, and still won't give space to let you pass. Most times, I just stand and stare at them. This even happens at work, when I am walking up the stairs.

I love visiting Japan, where everyone is super aware and would never do this. It’s amazing the difference in cultures.

No no no no, people are absolutely _not_ super aware here. Sure they might mostly stay on one side on the escalator, but that's where it ends.

I was about to say this too, as I've found that phone-gazing while walking is super prevalent compared to anywhere else I've been to. There's even research into using robots to try to get people to stop doing it [1]. At least they're more likely to apologize when they bump into you compared to other places.

[1] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8673017

You're not really supposed to stand on one side on an escalator. In certain places it became the social norm, but when long escalators are loaded up it leads to a majority of the weight being on one side which in turn leads to more critical breakdowns where all the passengers are dumped to the bottom.

Ideally everyone should just stand in the middle.

Unfortunately you just can't do that in Japan, it is pretty universal (though Kansai stands on the right, and Kanto stands on the left).

In extremely congested areas people will stand on both sides, but the convention is to stand on one side and have a "fast lane" on the other side. I realize it has less throughput, and puts more strain on the escalators, but that's not changing any time soon.

The point is, escalators and perhaps train boarding are the only two times where people will be mostly self aware of their position. Walking on the sidewalks is not one of those times, everyone is staring at their phones, or walking in groups of 2-3 across.

This annoys me so much, particularly when I'm running, that I don't even bother to move out of the way and play chicken with whoever's in my way.

Just keep walking and ignore them. Claim your space. For some reason they find out in the last fucking second you are walking there after all and they should make space. This is just dominance, they knew you were coming and decided to ignore you.

Or... stopping at the end of an escalator to figure out where they want to go! This happens way too often at malls, sporting stadiums, airports.

It also seems correlated with a certain kind of affluence. It's often much easier to get down a crowded street in a poor neighborhood than a rich one.

I've experienced that too. I lived many years in a so-called developing country, and when coming back to my native, so-called developed, country I was struck by the difference in crowd behavior between the two. In the former people were way more efficient.

Since then, I practice relaxation techniques when walking in the streets, and I'm not bothered anymore.

Another thing that I've noticed recently is people waiting for their Lyft/Uber pickup right at the corner. It looks like they are about to cross the street, so cars stop for them and wait, but then they keep just standing there, not crossing. It's just thoughtlessly cruel.

I sometimes work around the Friday of being such behind someone by taking it as a opportunity to "drop into a lower gear" and take things at a more casual pace.

It's probably because you only consciously notice people aggregate when they do so in a place that causes you an inconvenience.

Like the op, I also tend to have this “situational awareness guilt”. I get anxious to stop in places where I can see myself blocking someone else. I think it comes from the fact that generally I like to keep space around me and generally observe my surroundings, which I guess not everyone shares.

I get the same thing very often, what annoys me the most is when I'm walking with someone and there are oncoming people, and the person I'm with isn't walking in a straight line, they're slowly veering me into the path of other people.

I've just got to stop and walk around the other side of the person I'm with when they start doing that.

Its incredibly tiring being hyper-aware of your surroundings like this, always trying to avoid any awkwardness.

This. Man I thought I was the only one. Is there a group for people like us? A subreddit maybe?

I'm like many of the others here. It's not just noticed when it inconveniences me. It also when I notice it does, or would, inconvenience other people too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com