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How Walking With Smartphones May Have Changed Pedestrian Etiquette
An anonymous reader writes The phenomenon of 'distracted walking' — pedestrians who walk while using smartphones — has raised civic attention in the last few years, with Utah issuing fines and cities in China creating dedicated 'smartphone lanes' for walkers who need to keep up with Whatsapp on the move. This article argues that smartphone users have become so accustomed to other people getting out of their way that they will no longer negotiate for sidewalk space even when not using their phones.
Too many people period are idiots about not negotiating equitable space that I just bowl them down. I'm taller and large bigger than most, so if I think they're being oblivious or careless, down they go! Being a dick about sharing a laneway is a dick move and the only ONLY way to punish it is to not yield.
If you wanted to be an uber dick, you'd pick up their phone and throw it away, but that's too much for me =) Oh, that goes double for movie theatre texters! Die in a pit of hell assholes!
Bye!
1. SUV and pickup truck drivers
2. Women with baby strollers
3. Bicyclists
4. People interacting with their smartphones
From what I observe, people are increasingly self-absorbed. Phones are certainly part of it, but I'm often surprised when I see a driver behaving like someone on a phone, but when I can see them clearly, they're not on a phone or doing anything else, they're just spaced out / lost in daydreaming.
I love walking in to people like that on purpose and then saying, "Oh... Sorry..." I secretly hope they drop their damn phone!
Pretend to tie your shoes if you feel like being run off the sidewalk is immenint. This is the perfect strategy when people fly in formation taking up the entire sidewalk but refuse to move for people walking the other direction.
Keep in mind that battery is any unwanted touching and one can get real jail time or even prison time for battery. And if you decide to yank a phone or Ipad off of someone that can be taken as a major theft along with the battery. Of course you have the same privileges in law. If someone bumps into you you actually can cause them to be arrested. It is true that the courts will usually simply give them a fine but missing work for a trial and a pre trial hearing as well as posting bail and having to sign applications stating that you have been arrested for battery or assault are a real chiller and life changer. So instead of using your fists simply use the courts to achieve your means.
One very real issue is where someone grew up
and learned the rules of the road. Phones and distracted
walking make it all worse.
There are nations with left hand and right hand auto driving.
Pedestrian bias is shaped by these early days and parents.
Many communities now have a large enough community of newcomers .... India, Japan, Indonesia,,.... all nations now have a large enough
that these habits collide on the sidewalk. Mericans in Stralia, Brits
in France,
influx of newcomers that this is important.
I first encountered this at airports. Then the powered walkways seemed
to make it go away but.. no it is still there....
Worse or perhaps more importantly Mericans have highly controlled cross walks
for K-12 students. Students do not learn to look all ways for traffic. They simply
step out -- many will wait for a light but many not. No officer blows a whistle and
hollers get yer butt off the road. No one hollers get a move on you are blocking
traffic. Entitlement like turtles goes all the way down...
Universities have always had pedestrian accidents as egg heads oblivious to the world forget that
they have left the safe roads of the school and stepped into townie roads. This and the
localized communities of H1B visa holder make this obvious in some parts of the US.
Other nations have the same problems with clusters of expats.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
When someone is walking on the wrong side of the side walk (the left) and I have to avoid them, I don't , I set my feet come to a complete stop turn my shoulder in and if they make contact - make it painful. I am not moving but taking my space.
They get hurt, good, if you are offend or find this not proper, thats your right and I don't care what you think.
Apparently the issue depends on where you live, because while I used to see such wankers in Regina, Saskatchewan, I've never had the problem in the smaller community of Yorkton. Not only will people both walk through the snowbank on the side of the tromped-down path here, they'll actually say "Hi" to you while you're passing them.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Time to make an app that warns people when they're about to collide.
Don't move out of the way and watch them drop their expensive toys.
A minor, but noticeable smell of cultural ignorance here.. I'm pretty sure Chinese users are not concerned with keeping up with WhatsApp while they should be paying attention to the path. They are much more likely to be using Tencent-endorsed super-huge apps like WeChat.
Last week when I was driving to work as was approaching a traffic light that turned from red to green as I approached. I noticed a youth crossing the other side, head phones in and face down in his phone, slowed down in anticipation of him walking out in front of me. He did, I braked and blew my horn in warning and stopped and stepped backwards onto the central refuge and launched into a tirade of abuse and offensive gestures. Despite the fact I'd just saved him from serious injury at minimum as a result of his own stupidity.
You just cannot help some people.
who walks on the left side of the sidewalk and doesn't get out of the way when someone on the correct side is on a collision course with them.
Put smart phone users lanes out in the street in traffic. They'll start being more respectful then.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
She hung up before he could say goodbye. Stood there with her arm cocked, phone at ear-level, suddenly aware of the iconic nature of her unconscious pose. Some very considerable part of the gestural language of public places, that had one belonged to cigarettes, now belonged to phones. Human figures, a block down the street, in postures utterly familiar, were no longer smoking.
Zero History
I purposefully walk right into people doing that if they are in my path and i would have to move around them to get by. I have no compunction about reminding you that your choices have consequences.
Author is just inventing theories and sharing anecdotes. No research of any kind has gone into this.
The top half of it is static info that not only doesn't interest me, it doesn't change nor scroll. The scrollable article is on the bottom half. I assume it was the whole article, I scrolled a bit, saw the top wasn't gonna move, and left.
This has been going on for decades before the introduction of smartphones. The worse offenders were college campuses where the newly minted generation could not grasp that having a legal right of way is significantly different than the physical reality of stopping several tons of steel on a dime when they decide to step out into traffic. A complete obliviousness to surroundings. I had relayed it to their young minds being so engrossed, they forgot the simple lesson of stop, look, listen.
So special crosswalks were put up, with flashing lights warning drivers of the herd stupidity approaching, little different than deer crossing the highway, down to the same blank stares. And still, people were being run over. Even traveling at 20MPH, you can't stop in time for someone who steps out from behind a truck parked on the side of the road.
So then a crosswalk was built over the road, but that only works if people actually use them, and navigating two flights of stairs is much, much too burdensome.
You can't legislate away stupidity. I figure between distracted drivers and distracted pedestrians, we'll have an exercise in Darwinism, and a new colloquialism for road kill.
Or we'll have the masses on bumper-car electric scooters, and the city centers will turn into giant pachinko machines.
For a generation that is supposed the most educated and the most intelligent, you wouldn't guess it by observing their behavior.
I just move half way. Then anyone bumping into me better hope they have enough momentum to move my ass on impact. Male or female.
Just thought it was funny how the author of the article thinks Utah is a city... not particularly relevant, but funny all the same.
I didn't notice you. I regularly have small collisions, I'll make a little effort to avoid others, enough so that if they make a little effort there will be no contact.
After I've had to move for 3 people, I'm done. I am not their doormat. After letting the third person by in a walk, I switch to 'you will respect me' mode, and I will mow you down. Nope, I'm not 6' +. Just 5' 10". But I feel like a wall. And yes, I am READY to punch your lights out if you try to go violent on me. The worst ones are the ones who look right at you and still just move as a wall of 4 or 5 people. Fine, elbows out, fists ready, and I'm busting through.
I give 3, then I demand the same in return.
This sig intentionally left blank.
I wasn't aware that people outside of the United States stare at their smartphone while walking down the street or crossing a street. Someone in Washington, D.C. almost ran into me while I was walking to the subway station. I saw him at the last second because he came from behind me. Saw him from the corner of my eye and almost tripped over him.
Knock down a homie and you could visit the morgue.
Run them over.
Knock them down.
Thin the herd.
I have seen videos of phone-toting idiots falling into fountains while looking at their phone. What's next?
...act like women?
The common people have started to walk and drive in an unapproved, disorderly fashion while operating their bourgeois smartphones. Penalties must be imposed! We must stamp out this behavior now, before it becomes a threat to the social order!
I know down homies all the time. Most are scared little girls that have big mouths.
Plus they cant shoot shit with their low IQ's holding ther pistol sideways over their heads. Homies are stupid.
I walk in a very clear line but I give way as appropriate. However, if some distracted dumbass walks in to me, I'm going to knock them on the ground. I'm a fairly large individual and can generally deflect the "normal" (ie. moron) petite skinny-jeans-wearing pedestrian. Too bad for you, jackass
All these replies, and not one person has said that they would stop.
I always stop if someones coming at me with a phone. 9 times out of 10, for whatever reason, they process a static object in-front of them differently and look up before collision. Most likely also apologizing to me at the same time.
If 2 walkers collide, it could be said that they were both negligent. If someone walks into you though, they look like a complete dumbass and cannot possibly blame you (after all you are simply standing there, already staring at them angrily)
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I lived in New York City briefly a few years back. One of the fun things I would do was if someone was on his or her cellphone on the wrong side of the sidewalk, I would just ram into him or her. Also, I learned to square up my shoulders before we collided so as to come out better off. I did say "excuse me" to give the appearance of the collisions being unintentional. Someone who is not paying attention should be rammed into. That is being assertive.
Sadly distracted people are not always on cell phones, some times they are talking among themselves and do dumb things. I was waiting to cross an intersection going west but I'm pointing north to keep the sun out of my daughter's eyes. Three people are waiting to cross with me and they are talking to each other within their group. The light goes green for me and I start to cross west and they start to cross north against the red, I call them college educated. :)
Used to drive an old 67 Mustang. Pretty car but a piece of early 60s crap mechanically. The rear drum brakes had grooves worn in the backing plates over the years such that a sudden sharp application of the brakes would cause them to lock up hard.
It was very useful for distracted pedestrians; you would slow down gradually, and if they still didn't notice hey were wandering out in front of a car, I would twitch the steering wheel left, whap the brake pedal hard, the back wheels would lock up, and the car would do a screeching starsky and hutch fishtail stop. Nothing scares the crap out of a pedestrian like a car skidding sideways to a stop 3 feet from them. (Before anyone freaks out, I could do this at about 10 mph, so mr. pedestrian was never in any danger).
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Mostly teenagers that think they can force others to move by pretending they do not see us. ;)
They start paying attention once their 500Euro turd hits the ground
Sadly most people dont even need a phone to do that, as they are all dicks anyway.
Germans are sort of polite, but they have some anoyingly stupid habits that I've only seen here:
1.) When a train stops, those wanting to get on will group around the doors and give those wanting to get of a hard time in doing so. It's a site like from a Monty Python sketch. Like sheep you often have to shove them aside. I've resolved to boldly stepping straight out and onto the feet of anybody standing smack in the middle of the way and making loud suggestions on how to organise things so the people getting off can do so quickly for the benefit of all.
2.) Blocking the left side of escalators. Really annoying! I recently was to belgium and was astonished how orderly people standing on an escalator would move to the right side, so that people could walk on the left side. I was so astonished I pulled out my camera and took a series of pictures of this "phenomenon". ... Not so in Germany. Regularly people will stop and stand wherever they like to, no matter if they're blocking the way or not. I've resolved to the habit of just about stepping on peoples heels and breathing into their ear if they're unneccessarily blocking the way. Stupid remarks are riposted with witty "... or you could just stand on the right side just like everybody else in every other country on the planet." ... Usually shuts them up. I've actually seen people embarassed because of this. Good.
3.) As for people mindlessly tumbling about with their smartphones and earplugs: That annoys me greatly, especially in public spaces that are crowded and where you have to expect frequent social interaction, like on a crowded trainstation during rush-hour. ... Take out your f*cking earplugs and put them in when you've found your place on the train, for goodness sake! Nowadays, whenever I try to address someone and he doesn't listen because of earplugs and/or audio cranked up to max, I usually just push or pull them aside gently. Some are so zoned out they're actually OK with that. ... Guess electronic escapisim is shaping our social interaction in that way too.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
A vessel at anchor always has right of way (though I would not try this with a small boat and a big tanker). So I sometimes stop, take out cell phone and pretend to be answering a call. Since I am stopped, I have the right of way under most social rules of traffic in common spaces.
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
They all use WeChat or QQ, so the lane is for people who need to keep on WeChat and QQ. Interestingly both WeChat and QQ are made by the same company...
Lack of considering other people when using phone.
I have to assume any pedestrian near the curb anywhere whether stoned or on the phone or whatever is about to cross. An accident is not worth the hassle. The police in our city rarely ticket drivers hitting jaywalkers however.
I (and most other people) treat the sidewalk like a roadway, meaning you always walk on the right side, letting oncoming people walking the opposite way pass on your left. Why some people decide to walk on the left side just to be annoying or right down the middle when there is a ton of other people using that same sidewalk is just plain obnoxious. Not yielding to those type of idiots is the only way to go.
I know I'm a little late to this discussion (days later via email subscription), but FTFY.