What side do you walk on?

[Xprimentyl]

For reasons unclear to me, I found myself in one of my least favorite places this weekend, a mall, and I noticed the majority of people were walking on the right-hand side of the midway, same with sidewalks down town, in passing, people gravitate to the right. I liken it to vehicle traffic patterns where we here in the States drive on the right-hand side. I?m curious if this is a societal conditioning, and if so, I?d imagine in parts of the planet where people drive on the left-hand side, foot traffic would be left-hand oriented as well. Am I correct?

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Usually walk on the left hand side of the left hand pavement as close to the wall as possible in closeted suspicion of all humans with judgy eyeballs and lingering stares, correlating with my country of origin's road system. The conditioning is real. Or maybe i like going left as it is. It is usually the first choice in a videogame if there are multiple paths ahead. That could still be the fault of the roads infesting my impressionable young mind though.

 

[EvilRoy]

I'd be curious to know that as well, although I want to add that in parts of Canada people are actually taught or instructed to move this way.

There are sometimes signs in festival locations and malls indicating how they want people to move and where it is ok to cross traffic. Usually it comes in hard around Christmas where crowds are so thick it is otherwise unmanageable.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

The wild side.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Usually walk on the left hand side of the left hand pavement as close to the wall as possible in closeted suspicion of all humans with judgy eyeballs and lingering stares, correlating with my country of origin's road system. The conditioning is real. Or maybe i like going left as it is. It is usually the first choice in a videogame if there are multiple paths ahead. That could still be the fault of the roads infesting my impressionable young mind though.

Would you say this leftward tendency is a shared preference in your left-side driving country?

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Would you say this leftward tendency is a shared preference in your left-side driving country?

I cannot presuppose it is not. On a small pavement where two unsuspectors meet in opposing directions, there is often the gravitational pull to each creature's left. That is not to say there isn't the occasional heretic, like myself when the opposing unsuspector is a mother with a double pram and a determined frown upon her face already ploughing obliviously along her right side. It is unwise to challenge such deviancy if one desires to complete one's journey with minimal hassle.

 

[Chewster]

The wild side.

This is the only acceptable answer.

Real talk though: people where I am gravitate toward the way they drive I think because the busier subway transfer spots between stations are set up like that. Without them, there'd be so many people smashing into one another it would be utter chaos.

The only sins when it comes to walking are taking up too much room combined with walking too slow. I'm always in a hurry to get where I'm going so I don't have to be walking any more and slow walkers drive me up the wall. At university, I had to become a ninja to dive around all the selfish slow walkers.

 

[Trunkage]

I walk on the left, because I'm not a monster

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I assume its the same side that we drive on.

 

[Casual Shinji]

On the right side by default, as it should be

But if I'm in a shopping centre, or some other crowded area, I'll walk wherever there's the least amount of people clogging up the way

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

The wild side.

Lou Reed would approve.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I'm sure there was a study done on this a few years ago. I'm a bit hazy on the details, but as I remember it had something to do with the fact that right handed people carry our shopping on the right, therefore we want people to pass on our left so as not to accidentally collide with our bags as they pass. The reverse is true of left handed people as they carry their bags on the left and therefore wish people to pass them on the right. Personally I don't care whether someone passes me on the right or the left, just so long as they don't stand still on freakin' escalators.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I'm sure there was a study done on this a few years ago. I'm a bit hazy on the details, but as I remember it had something to do with the fact that right handed people carry our shopping on the right, therefore we want people to pass on our left so as not to accidentally collide with our bags as they pass. The reverse is true of left handed people as they carry their bags on the left and therefore wish people to pass them on the right. Personally I don't care whether someone passes me on the right or the left, just so long as they don't stand still on freakin' escalators.

Interesting take; I hadn?t considered that it might be a handedness driven behavior; I guess I just saw a more direct correlation between automobile traffic and pedestrian traffic and thought maybe the written law of the former unconsciously translated to an unspoken law of the latter. But if handedness is it, that would make me an exception; because I?m right-handed, anything I?m carrying tends to me in my left hand; keeps my dominant hand free for keys, phone, public groping, etc.

But AMEN on the escalator thing!! It drives me INSANE when I see someone just standing there, doubly so if they stand still all the way up until the stair under their feet disappears; how friggin? lazy? Get your ass out the way!!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I have absolutely no idea.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I tend to walk on the same side that people are driving on too, and also standing on that side of escalators in case people are in a rush and wanna blaze past. I wish more people followed this rules, especially in the overpopulated city where I live, and people just go wherever the hell they feel like it, keeping traffic flowing, free and not chaotic is an alien concept.

 

[SckizoBoy]

I grew up in a left-side driving country, but live in a right-side driving country...

But my answer is either... I'll scowl at oncoming pedestrians until they move.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Isn't that part of etiquette anymore? Like that at door people going out should be given way, women before men, elders before children etc. (it's slightly different in different regions, ie. Middle East and North Africa but usually very consistent within a region). It's just set of customs to streamline daily societal relations, so people would know what to expect from one another without need of verbal communication and resulting disputes/clashes (going by Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry's fox thought on source of conflicts ).
I was tought, that left side countries claim they derive it from tradition of jousting and one visiting such country should respect local customs. Honestly though, it just doesn't matter. People at one point just had to pick a side to stop bumping onto each other and getting angry about it.

Question, did your parents not pass onto you these customs when you were young?

 

[Xprimentyl]

Isn't that part of etiquette anymore? Like that at door people going out should be given way, women before men, elders before children etc. (it's slightly different in different regions, ie. Middle East and North Africa but usually very consistent within a region). It's just set of customs to streamline daily societal relations, so people would know what to expect from one another without need of verbal communication and resulting disputes/clashes (going by Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry's fox thought on source of conflicts ).
I was tought, that left side countries claim they derive it from tradition of jousting and one visiting such country should respect local customs. Honestly though, it just doesn't matter. People at one point just had to pick a side to stop bumping onto each other and getting angry about it.

Question, did your parents not pass onto you these customs when you were young?

Sorry, what exactly are you taking issue with? The question had nothing to do manners, courtesies or tacit communication. I observed at a local mall that in free-form pedestrian traffic traveling in opposing directions, the vast majority of people favored patterns similar to what I observe on our right-hand side driving roads: walking on the right-hand side. My question was whether or not people in countries that drive on the left-hand side of the road also walk on the left-hand side of midways and sidewalks and whether or not people felt the former was the reason for the latter.

 

[Belaam]

Which ever side has the least traffic.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Lol, I appreciate all the candid an clever responses with your personal preferences, but I guess I should have asked ?What side of opposing-direction foot traffic do people in your country generally walk on and does it align with you?re the way your road traffic flows?? But I don?t think they would have fit in the subject bar.