Pavement Ranting

SOCIALLY CONSIDERATE?

GREAT SPATIAL AWARENESS?

OCD?

OR JUST A PAIN IN THE ARSE?

OK, an apology right at the start, because this is a rant, a full blooded, no compromise, intolerant, highly personal moan about one aspect of life that irritates me time and time again. There will be no more apologies.

This is not about driving standards (although I may turn to that another day....), but let's start on the road. Drivers instinctively know that they need an awareness of what is going on around them. They have to know where other vehicles are in regard to their own, front, back and sides, they need to be able to judge relative speeds and adjust their own progress and direction accordingly. Mostly this is done unconsciously, a product of experience and the ability of the human brain to take in information and make decisions in 3D. We know that if we don't do this there will be collisions - paint scraped, bodywork dented, or much much worse. The threat of injury of death is always present. But we also do it because most of us are fundamentally decent, both by instinct and intent, trying to treat others as we'd want to be treated ourselves, feeling that consideration for others is simply civilised behaviour.

So why does this decency, and awareness of other human beings, desert so many people when on foot? Why, why, why do so many people pay so little thought to the people in their immediate vicinity? Time and again I find myself being blocked on the pavement, getting barged into or stood on, obstructed from carrying on with my life. What is wrong with these people?!

If I'm walking along a busy street and want to change direction, to go into a shop say, I'll make every effort to take account of those whose paths I may have to cross. I'll try not to come to a sudden halt because there could be someone close behind me. If I'm moving slowly I will keep an eye out behind me to see if anyone needs to get past. When I meet somebody I know and stop to talk with them I'll suggest we move out of others' way rather than standing in the middle of the pavement. If I'm waiting for someone I will keep off the main walkway, take care not to cause an obstruction. So why doesn't everyone else? Am I so unusual to give some thought for my fellow humans? If it can be done on the road why not on the pavement? OK, there isn't the same danger to life and paintwork, but common courtesy is common courtesy. Why can't people use the observational and evaluative powers our higher intelligence endows us with?

The worst place for all this is the supermarket, a concentration of individuals whose eyes are not pointed in the same direction as the trolley they are pushing. Age, gender, class, it makes no difference, they all seem to assume that their path will be clear though some miraculous process and that knee/trolley contact could not possibly be painful. They will meet an acquaintance and, rather than seek out some place where they can talk without inconveniencing other customers, they will plant themselves in the middle of the dairy goods aisle, each with trolley, children in tow and an arse the size of Wales. Especially if it's around five thirty on a Friday.

One day we were in Asda, at a time when it was relatively quiet, so our progress went generally unimpeded (other than by the Ugg booted crowd hiding the pizzas, and the dithering OAP in rice and pasta). We used the self service till and took our bag to leave, only to find a young 'lady' using the next till had parked her pram at a 75 degree angle across the (plenty wide) exit from the till lane, with herself absorbed in passing through her purchases and oblivious to the existence of anyone else on the planet. If she'd just parked the thing by the side of the till all would have been well, but that would be too easy, wouldn't it? Oh no, she has to position the thing in the point of maximum inconvenience for her neighbours. If she'd done it on purpose it might even have been marginally less irritating simply because then she'd actually have made a good job of it. But no, this was done without thought, without consideration, without even the decency to be malicious. Stupidity rules.

Is it just me? Doesn't anyone else share my outrage? Can we band together? The Organisation Seeking Sensible Pedestrian Outdoor Techniques maybe?

I am not, you'll be relieved to know, going to try and propose a solution. Much as the idea of people needing to pass tests to acquire pedestrian licences has a strong appeal, or the encouragement of citizens' arrests for dawdling, blocking and general physical inconsiderateness would be a positive step towards a better world, I am forced to admit that these measures will only be enforced in my dreams. Or rants.

But is it really asking too much for somebody to draw up a pedestrians charter?

Thinks......