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

Why do people ride to the top (or bottom) of an escalator, step off and then stop to look around? Do they
expect those of us who are behind them will step backwards on the escalator until they are out of the way?
Do they think there is a sensor at the end that will stop the escalator until the way is clear? And if those
of us behind them accidently bump them as we are trying to go by, why do they get so upset even when
we apologize for their rudeness?

Heh heh... When I was little, I was scared to death of escalators... I was always afraid I was going to misstep and slide under the thing.

have you ever tried to get on an escalator while on crutches? Its a nightmare!

Try it with:

An elderly gentleman who needs a bit of assistance
A roll-around luggage carrier
A golf-club cart
Both hands full of luggage
An infant
A pram

(Erm.. That's all at once, btw... and it's a nightmare, too. )

I know.. I did about a month and a half ago at a crowded airport.

When I was a teen (back in the dark ages) I was riding an escalator (I think they had just been invented) and slipped on the ramp at the top. I fell and slid down about ten steps and cut my leg open (7 stitches, not fun).

Darn things still make me nervous.

Just pretend they aren't moving and treat them like normal stairs. This doesn't help your fear but it fools others.

I like to turn around backwards and go up the down and down the up.


(Or I -would- like it... if... )

And if you faced forward, and walked backwards, you could make people think you were standing still.

Probably apocryphal anecdote:

When the first escalator was installed (?in a US department store) it engendered such trepidation that the owners hired a bloke with both legs broken to go up and down it all day on his crutches to prove how safe it was.

This worked fine until the rumour spread that he'd broken his legs on the escalator...

And how about moving walkways? They're fun.
Me and my mate went to the Bike Show at the NEC in Birmingham, but needed some cash. The ATM we wanted was over in the Birmingham International Airport buildings (linked to the NEC by a series of coverered bridges and staircases).

Since we didn't want to miss any of the action at the show (like getting Trevor Nation's autograph) so we ran across the walkways, and both went flying when we got to solid ground at the end of them (since our relative velocity to the ground suddenly dropped like a brick).

On the way back we decided the walkways were so much fun that we took it in turns to run down them in the wrong direction (a bit like an overgrown treadmill).

Heh.. I've never had the .. erm.. pleasure?

I thought those were all in my head. The same day I was at the airport with the armload of things trying to get on an escalator I was picturing all these people scurrying about and how much easier it would have been on the aging gentleman if they'd install a system of conveyor belts for the passengers as well as the luggage.

PLEASE, don't give them any ideas. They are probably already designing a system to pick us up as they fly over.

The best kind are the ones that are a cross between moving walkways and escalators, sloping moving walkways, like the ones that they have in 2 storey supermarkets, to get the trolleys up and down! they are really fun!

If they'd ever get those transporters perfected....

Another bit of escalator etiquette that many people ignore is right-of-way. Riding on an escalator should be like driving on a highway: keep right, pass left (at least in the US). If you're just going along for the ride, stand to the right, but if you'd like to escape this mass of humanity as quickly as possible, climb or descend on the left. This works very well in subways in major cities during rush hour, but everywhere else, people feel free to block the whole path (the worst is when tourists, the usual culprits, are mixed in with rush-hour traffic). Does this bother anyone else too? Why isn't there a standard code of behavior in these kind of situations? These people are impeding the flow of traffic just as much as 'gramps' doing 40 mph in the fast lane.

In the London Undergrounds they have signs posted explaining that little rule. I have still seen people ignore it but not many and as you said usually tourists.

If only the DC Metro Authority was so intelligent...

I don't know about now, since I live in an area in which an escalator would be a dolphin out of the sea and I didn't look at the airport, but back when I was little (which might partly explain my paranoia of the things, as I could read -very- young), there used to be signs by the elevators warning potential occupants to "PLEASE REMAIN STATIONARY on the escalator."

So that is why they have them in so many stations.