hairyben wrote:
If pedestrians behaved as many drivers do we'd see people crashing into each other non-stop and having punch-ups, but we don't, evan in overcrowded streets we all work our way along excercising social grace, yet as the vast majority of drivers are also pedestrians where does this different mindset come in?
I don't think things are quite as clear cut in the pedestrian manners vs motorist manners comparison. Whilst it's true that the simple act of walking along a busy pavement doesn't tend to result in pedestrian-rage, the same could also be said about driving along a busy stretch of motorway. When the scenarios involve a bit more "urgency" though, it seems to me that pedestrians are just as capable as motorists of doing utterly selfish and in some cases downright dangerous acts in order to give themselves an advantage over the rest of the crowd.
You say that people don't walk into a bank, post office etc. and jump the queue, yet some people do just that, and pay no heed whatsoever to the various utterances - "excuse me", "there's a queue here", "oi you!", "tut tut" etc - coming from the people already in the queue. Granted, I tend not to see this happening so much in places where the queueing system is clearly laid out (e.g. larger banks and post offices), but in shops and smaller places which don't define where to queue, it seems to be coming a more frequent occurrence, especially for self-service type operations (self-serve checkouts, cash machines, car park ticket machines etc) where there isn't someone behind the counter able to deny service to the queue-jumper until they've taken their rightful place in the line.
And have you never travelled by train (or bus, if you're in an area where buses have done away with separate entry/exit doors) during the rush hour? The tube at rush hour is a classic example of self-centred pedestrian activity at its worst, with people in some cases literally shoving other travellers out of the way in order to cram themselves onto the train that's just arrived, whilst the people already on the train trying to get off are left to then try squeezing onto the platform through a dense (I use the term quite deliberately here) mass of people who don't appear to have grasped the point that until people get off the train, there won't be as much space inside for them to get on.
Then there's the "two people approaching a doorway from opposite sides of the door" scenario. Common sense and basic courtesy should be sufficient to resolve the "who goes first" question, but sadly some people seem to think their time is so important that they'll barge through the doorway no matter what effect that has on the other person (e.g. having the door swing closed in their face).
So I'm not sure I entirely agree with your "what is it with cars?" comment, because in my experience it seems that a lot of the bad behaviour we see exhibited by motorists
does get exhibited by pedestrians as well. I suppose the main difference is that, in the main, there's less scope for personal injury/damage to property if a pedestrian misbehaves compared to if a motorist were to exhibit the same sort of poor behaviour, so there's less incentive for the person on the receiving end of that behaviour to get sufficiently worked up about it to result in a pedestrian-rage incident.
e.g. If someone doesn't bother looking before changing lanes, forcing me to brake/swerve to avoid a collision, that'll be sure to get my adrenaline pumping and a few choice words thrown in their direction. If someone suddenly steps in front of me without looking when I'm also on foot, then although it's the same basic behaviour it's not going to result in me going into "danger, red alert!" mode.
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