Considerate Pedestrians

These pedestrians took up the entire lane on the crowded Lakefront Path today near Fullerton, but they were considerate enough to provide padding for approaching cyclists.

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Permalink Reply by Mark on May 29, 2012 at 12:03pm

The Park District needs to build a paved bypass trail for bikes that runs closer to LSD from Fullerton south to underneath the pedestrian bridge, where it would join the existing bypass trail. This would greatly increase safety for everyone.

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Permalink Reply by spencewine on May 29, 2012 at 12:19pm

I run mostly on the LFP and I have found many bicyclist to be just as "entitled" as pedestrians. I love it when I'm running on the path and a bicyclist comes flying out of an on ramp and about runs me over while getting onto the path...or better yet, when I'm going to pass someone on the path in my lane, but an oncoming bicyclist decides that they're entitled to use my lane to pass someone and they about run me over in the process. Entitlement is endemic on the LFP, it goes well beyond the type of recreation (or social status for that matter.)

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Permalink Reply by Joe Schmoe on May 29, 2012 at 12:29pm

My personal fave are the runners who run right down the center line of the path, forcing me to pass on the right.

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Permalink Reply by spencewine on May 29, 2012 at 12:34pm

or the groups of CARA runners who take up the whole path and don't allow anyone to pass, or the pedestrians that walk 3 wide, or the group of 20 jerk bicyclist who take over the path and run down pedestrians and curse them out as they pass, or the cars that blow the stop sign on the north LFP and almost hit the guy crossing. It's all the same thing, man.

edit: I forgot to add the rollerblader who takes up an entire lane and is impossible to pass.

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy on May 29, 2012 at 12:49pm

Entitlement is rampant from all populations on the path. The only way to deal with it is realize that it's going to be insane when it's nice and either slow down or avoid it completely.

If you want to head out there on an 80-degree day it's not like anyone is making you be rude while doing it. Take a deep breath and try to enjoy the sunshine.

spencewine said:

I run mostly on the LFP and I have found many bicyclist to be just as "entitled" as pedestrians. I love it when I'm running on the path and a bicyclist comes flying out of an on ramp and about runs me over while getting onto the path...or better yet, when I'm going to pass someone on the path in my lane, but an oncoming bicyclist decides that they're entitled to use my lane to pass someone and they about run me over in the process. Entitlement is endemic on the LFP, it goes well beyond the type of recreation (or social status for that matter.)

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Permalink Reply by Serge Lubomudrov on May 29, 2012 at 12:53pm

Oh, yes: this is another favorite :)

Nançois said:

I have also observed a similar phenomenon with groups of people coming to a complete standstill at the exit point of an escalator or immediately after passing through a revolving door. To the point where the people immediately behind them, propelled forward by the same technology the offending parties just used, are thrown right smack into them. Usually, without padding.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Schneider on May 29, 2012 at 1:56pm

I'll add to this, people in grocery stores leaving their cart in the middle of the aisle, blocking passage.

Common theme - obliviousness to the presence of others. I think this has more to do with intelligence than with sense of entitlement.

Serge Lubomudrov said:

Oh, yes: this is another favorite :)

Nançois said:

I have also observed a similar phenomenon with groups of people coming to a complete standstill at the exit point of an escalator or immediately after passing through a revolving door. To the point where the people immediately behind them, propelled forward by the same technology the offending parties just used, are thrown right smack into them. Usually, without padding.

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Permalink Reply by James BlackHeron on May 29, 2012 at 3:54pm

Obliviousness/lack of a sense of what is going on around them (situational awareness.)
A sense of entitlement and ego-centric world view where they are the only "real" person and everyone else is merely a shadow or shape moving around them -dehumanized and therefore unimportant. A complete lack of situational awareness (No.1 above) only magnifies this entitlement.
The thing with people stopping once they go through a door (revolving or otherwise) is an instinct that goes right beyond the monkey brain and all the way to the lizard brain. When stepping out from cover (the denser underbrush of the inside of the building and through a door) it is a good idea to pause a moment to survey the open plain for predators before proceeding. People don't even realize they are donig this -but they are. They long ago forgot the looking for predators part but the pause as they step out from cover is still part of the hard-wring of our speciies and many of the ancestors of our species back to a time before we were even mammals.