h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Follow the simple rule and stay out of trouble: Stand on the right. Walk on the left.

I am not sure whether it's the other way round in Tokyo. Someone?

HELL

It is always easy to spot regular tube users in shopping centres by observing escalator behaviour. They automatically line up single file on the right hand side of the escalator

Sometimes you can see people suddenly realise where they are and hurriedly step up next to their friend/spouse/personal shopper/whatever.

k

'tis different in Australia.

Stand on the left, faster moving people on the right. Though of course, we've got that whole "Keep Left" thing going on.

I knew it! I knew it!

You Aussies again...



H

Iss easy. You drive on the left, you stand on the left!

What about Britain? They stand on the right, like all other civilised cultures (just joking, just joking... OUCH!), but they drive left...

Well, but there's a lot about Britain we (from elsewhere) will never figure out anyways, so...

Cheerio,

H

Hell, have you ever thought about a career in the diplomatic corps?

The problem with the London escalators is that we get lots and lots of European school children who seem to think that they were designed for sitting down on and

If you are a small woman, being surrounded on all sides by six foot male adolescents can be a bit intimidating!

It's the same in Ireland. Lots of European (continental) school children, and we have the whole left/right dilemma going on. In theory we stand on the right, but here, there's always the written rule and the practiced rule. A lot of Irish people don't seem to have been properly trained. Stay on whichever side everyone else seems to be on, or keep to the right and claim a moral victory (while you're being trampled). We do, really truly, drive on the left.

In trying to work out where to stand and where to walk, read the signs - on the Tube's escalators, there are signs every metre or so between the escalators to stand on the right.

If the signs are in a different language, then you can either consult the translator book, or observe the traffic of local people using the escalator. Their behaviour of standing/walking on the escalator may prove to be a vital clue as to how you should behave when using that mode of transport.

Yeah, but why bother trying to follow convention when you can just be obnoxious and try to knock everyone else out of the way because you feel you've got the right to go against the grain and walk up the wrong side of the stairs/escalators? *giggles* That seems to be the way it works in Sydney...even though there are signs saying "Keep to left on stairs and escalators"

The way you get off escalators is improtant too. I hate it when people dawdle at the top forcing you to do some fast fancy footwork to avoid thumping into them. Allowances are made for the elderly and people with enourmous bags, or something, but really.

I forgot to add that actually, it isn't just annoying. Some woman was fannying about at the top of an escalator and got her bag caught in one of the stations here last week. It opened up a hole between the moving plates and the bit at the top and two people had their toes crushed before it could be stopped.

Apparently this happenes all the time. And not, you understand, just here in Russia.

So: Sprint off that escalalator if you know what's good for you!

Conventions of left OR right don't apply eveywhere... as I discovered talking to a friend from Fiji.
He said "driving for me is not so easy, in this country, you drive on the left, in that country, they drive on the right, in my country, we drive in the shade!"

Maybe multistorey buildings are few and far between there ??

My local supermarket has a moving walkway to accomodate shopping trolleys to and from the car park. One day, at the bottom of the walkway, some kids were selling candy, accosting everyone. The woman in front of me stopped right at the bottom of the walkway to make a purchase, completely blocking me in. I yelled at her to move (my trolley was too heavy for me to pull backwards), but she didn't listen and I plowed directly into her. She yelled that she was going to sue me, but the wittnesses laughed at her and said she got what she deserved - a sore bum.

hmm....at least in new york anyway, you can really stand anywhere on the elevator, it doesn't matter, and you walk up until you come to someone in front of you who isn't walking.
i've always thought walking on the elevator was a strange phenomenomenon....

escalator NOT elevator...

Some people just don't like standing still for the thirty seconds it takes to get to the top of the escalator

When walking on roads in Britain, if there is no pavement or footpath, you are advised to walk on the right side of the road, facing the oncoming traffic.
Why? Not really sure, perhaps it's so that milk floats can't creep up behind you, or to give you time to write down the number plate of the mad farmer who's about to force you off the country road with his tractor.
But that could explain why we stand on the right on escalators.
Mind you, I can't see many cars making it through the ticket barriers at kings cross tube station.

By facing the oncoming traffic on a road without footpaths, you optimise the chance of seeing the face of the mad bar-steward driving the car that kills you, thereby allowing you to haunt precisely *their* car stereo with a tremendously loud and deep bass throbbing noise that will alert all and sundry that a w****r in a is on the loose.

Nobody walks in Los Angeles, the song wasn't a joke. Seriously. If you walk for exercise, be sure to do it on a treadmill in a gym or in your home. To be seen walking is to alert folks you are loony or don't have a car, which are very bad things here.

Thus, if you walk up an escalator, not only are you being even more outlandish (and you WILL get stared at) you are alerting security that you might need to be tossed out.

Nobody admits to taking the bus in Los Angeles. To do so is to announce to the world that your driver's licence has been revoked for drunk driving.