5 ms·
>Walking anywhere in London or navigating the subway during rush hour means having to make a mad, dodging, aggressive dance against an oncoming tide of people,
by Ended 10y ago
>Walking anywhere in London or navigating the subway during rush hour means having to make a mad, dodging, aggressive dance against an oncoming tide of people, many of whom seem oblivious to Britain’s long tradition of walking on the left.
I feel obliged to point out that this 'long tradition' only exists on escalators in the London Underground. Anywhere else in the country (or London for that matter) we walk on whichever side we feel like.
- 13of40 10y agoIt took a while for me to figure this out, but there's actually an unmentioned rule in the US that you walk to the right when you're passing people, at least when it's congested enough that you have to choose. I see a lot of people from overseas struggling with this where I work, at least early on.
- Sacho 10y agoIsn't that just a parallel of driving rules?
- 13of40 10y agoYeah, I was responding to the "we walk on whichever side we feel like" part, which is not the case in the US.
- hibbelig 10y agoGerman here. It's totally non-intuitive for me that I should pass on the left when driving but pass on the right when walking. Or vice versa. When coming to London, this always makes me spend extra CPU cycles to ensure that I'm not doing anything wrong.
- cm2187 10y agoI have seen people observing the rule of leaving the left line for people walking in any escalator in London. Perhaps out of habit of taking the tube, but it's not specific to the tube anymore.