Sidewalking

I am convinced that people tend to walk like they drive, which is to say, generally, poorly. The most noticeable characteristic of people’s walking is that they cannot seem to proceed in a straight line. They wobble or warble about as if they are drunk or suffering from vertigo. Surprisingly, this is unrelated to whether of not they are talking on their cell phones while they amble along. In fact, from my observation, this behavior is unrelated to anything external to the person walking. It might be understandable if the sidewalk presented obstacles which had to negotiated by walking in this sinuous manner. But this is not case. They just cannot walk straight down the sidewalk. Of course, if he or she were the only one using the sidewalk, this would be a who-cares situation. But on the busy streets from which I have made these observations, that is not the case.

In addition to this random back and forth movement, people do not seem to understand or even pay attention to the flow of pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. Generally, I’ve observed, when there are more than one or two people on a given sidewalk people tend to form a pattern whereby those going one way proceed on one side of the sidewalk while those going the other way stick to the opposite side of the sidewalk. This tends to follow the rules-of-the-road generally accepted throughout the country.

Without fail there are always those few who either refuse to abide by this convention or are too stupid, inconsiderate or unobservant or some pathetic combination thereof, to conform, and attempt walk on the side coming directly at them. Such behavior is not only highly disruptive of the movement of people along the sidewalks, but ultimately results in someone or something being knocked to the ground. Unfortunately, the person getting knocked down or having their belongings knocked out of their hands is usually not the person walking against the flow. And, astoundingly, when this has happened, the fool walking against the flow gets upset with the person into whom he or she collided; as if everyone else on the street is an inconsiderate troglodyte and are supposed to avoid him.