'Oh would you just walk your f*cking legs please'

Heading shopping to get some last bits tomorrow and I’m already livid from reading these comments. If anyone gets in my way god love them. Fed up now

Gideon Howling Policeman wrote: »

I hope I get in your way :cool:

Loooooooolz

Dear O. P,
Don't take anything for granted.
I used to be quick - proper race fit and won my share and did a very decent Dublin marathon time.

Woke up one morning with serious spinal cord injuries. Now my cousin who smoked and drank all his life and is grossly overweight is quicker than I am. Good job I never pissed any slow people off

Flaccus wrote: »

Walking through local shopping centre the other day and it was like dodgems. Lots of em just walking straight out of a store without looking where they are going, staring down at mobile phone. Mostly teens. Had to do numerous course corrections to avoid being hit till someone finally walked backwards out of easons mobile in hand and banged into me. Well really they bounced off me. The good news is they dropped their phone and reckon screen was a goner. Twats.

This annoys me way more than your average slow walker. Teens are the worst offenders. I walked straight through a chap the other day who was too busy answering his phone to see the human walking a dog in front of him. He won't do it again, not to me anyway. Not as bad as when its some twat driving while staring at their phone but still.

Rufeo wrote: »

I will tell you what's worse, a group of people standing on the footpath and blocking the street.

Yes - that is well dangerous of course, and requires even more lack of common sense than blocking the way off escalators, (It's just that as a Londoner I'm particularly alert to that, especially with those at the deep-level tube stations there being very long and steep. And I seldom get to stop in Dublin).

London's West End is great for crowded pavements of course, but then Londoners have evolved to form ad-hoc pavement streams for different speeds. There's still no lack of obliviousness there though. My hols back there usually include a targeted stretch of Oxford Street to get shopping out of the way quickly. Drifters and sudden stoppers are a real plague there, so I try to leave a little stopping/swerving distance in front (and wish people snapping at my heels would do likewise!). It's the same on escalators - I like to leave one free step in front, for a bit of elbow room (for both people), but usually the next person usually doesn't, and the impatience they exude defies logic, as if dropping back by a foot-length has made them late. And open-heeled flats are out (unless you fancy being abruptly projected forward, plus maybe an enforced hop/barefoot limp round the shoe shops). Another lack of awareness that always amazes me there is the number of strollers with their phones sticking out of their back pockets, as if on offer.

I'm 100% with those pointing out that you never know why someone's walking slowly. I have a bee in my bonnet about people making negative assumptions about someone they know nothing about, and/or using their body shape or other characteristic as an insult.

That said, some slow walkers are fairly clearly just unaware of the frustration they can cause. Like groups of slowly strolling holidaymakers clearly determined that they will enjoy themselves, making themselves broader with accordingly expansive arm positioning, and walking abreast right across the pavement like a police barrier. (A male speciality by the way, to whom it may concern!). In these and other blocking cases I find that a gentle 'accidental' nudge (with an errant shoulder bag, perhaps), usually does the trick (with an added 'Sorry!' if they need extra waking up). The fact that it works so often (with even a return 'Sorry!'), is a sign of how unlikely it is that blocking a fast walker is deliberate.

Equally, you don't usually know why someone is in a rush. (That's why I not only don't object to being overtaken on the pavement/road, but try to facilitate it).

End of my halfpenny-worth (if you got this far!). Wishing everyone a happy (and free-walking!) Christmas!

As someone with reduced mobility, there is nothing, absolutely nothing more annoying than a prick trying to pass you out in a crowd because you're going 'too slow '

This ^^^

no problem with slow walkers but fücks in a line walking slowly oblivious to everything and everybody around them…

There's no footpath etiquette here, it's like they've just been invented and people are clueless about how to use them. Groups taking up the entire width and expecting you to step off to make way or get around them, and then the cyclists, they're FOOTpaths, the clue is in the name.

Same with escalators. Plonking bags down or buddies standing beside each other as a immovable barrier for anyone who wants to get past.