No, I’m not complaining about taking a “walk on the wild side”. I’m complaining about walking on the wrong side of wherever you are walking.
Walking is like driving. Unless you are walking down a street that people can drive on (where you are supposed to walk facing oncoming traffic), walk on the same side you drive. That’s not hard to remember and it’s not hard to do.
If you’re in the U.S. like me, walk down the right side of the hallway or sidewalk. Don’t be a jackass and think you’re cute just because they don’t have lines or laws about where to walk. I get the whole individuality thing as much as the next guy, but walking down the wrong side of the hallway is not making much of a political or artistic statement. It’s just jumbling things up.
If you come around a corner in a hallway and you see someone coming at you, veer to the right. Things will magically fall into place. You’ll be amazed how well things can work by keeping it simple like this.
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You are right! I don’t get why when two people come to a point where they have to go around one another, most people I run into go to the LEFT…is that what they do when the drive…move into oncoming traffic?
Move to the right!
I stop when people come toward me on the “wrong-side.” What often happens is that they stop too and expect me to go around them. How difficult is it to walk on the right side? These people are so arrogant that they think they are more important than everyone else and people need to get out of their way. Makes me want to smack them.
Ann on December 22nd, 2007 at 4:58 pm | Link
I can totally relate to this, thought I was the only one who it bothered!! Growing up at every school I went to we were taught to keep the right side, now in the work world I find people just meander all over the hallways, or worse yet, come around corners at lightning speed from the left and almost collide with me, keeping right as I do out of habit. Then the crazy thing is they act like it’s ME getting in THEIR way, like it doesn’t make perfect sense to maintain a flow of ‘traffic’ in hallways, etc, just like we do on the road. Idiots.
Sarah on July 26th, 2010 at 12:25 pm | Link
First off, lol… People are being “jackasses” or “cute” because they’re not following your standards of “hallway etiquette”? Has it ever occurred to you that maybe there’s more going on in that person’s life than whether they’re on the correct side of a hallway or not? As far as making a political or artistic statement by walking on the “wrong” side of a hallway, I think it’s more of a political statement that you think you have the right to tell someone how they should walk. There is a law stating which side of a street you can walk on (my brother got a ticket at 3 AM on a street with no cars on it).
As for the other comments… Yes, I do pass people on the left. That is the law. When you pass someone when you’re driving, do you pass them on the right? onto the shoulder or into the ditch?
And you stop when someone is walking toward you and don’t get why they stop too? If you’re walking down a hallway and someone stops in front of you looking at you, you just ignore them and walk by? That is rude… Perhaps they were stopping to say something to you? And you are arrogant for stopping the flow of traffic to prove a point that people should walk on the right side. You are arrogant for thinking that your way of life and that you are more important than someone else, and that only you have the right to choose which side of a hallway or sidewalk people walk on.
So in your opinions, in EVERY hallway in EVERY building in EVERY country, EVERYONE should stay to the right ALWAYS? Should we put stripes on the concrete as well, and have pedestrian police to make sure people walk correctly? what if someone has to turn left around a corner, do you stop for 3 seconds, holding out your left arm, and waiting for traffic to clear?
My point is, don’t compare walking to driving a car. While walking down a hallway or sidewalk you have many different directions you can move to avoid an obstacle, and you are moving slow enough that a collision would be very easily avoidable. While driving you are moving considerably faster and only have very limited directions on which you can go while moving forward. They have laws for driving, and no laws for walking down a hallway or sidewalk for those reasons.
Also, most people I know move to the left to avoid people out of instinct because that’s how we do it while driving, by only a few people in the country moving to the right instead of the left, it complicates things for the normal people…
Chris on August 10th, 2010 at 2:05 pm | Link