Been good son in law this weekend and took non driving outlaws to big out town shopping centre. Every time we got to an escalator it was really surprising to see all the able bodied shoppers unable to move on them until the top/bottom of the run. Is there something that makes people fixed to the moving step, or is the hell of window shopping having some wierd effect on legs so that they can only shuffle their feet and not lift them?

What’s it got to do with you?

Terrible attempt at a rant 😐

0/10.

Why move if the escalator does it for you? Let those that want to sprint up and down carrying heavy bags use the stairs, I’ll be stood in the middle of the escalator.

Just asking a question as we wondered why. What has it got to do with you asking what it has got to do with me anyway? Are you an Internet Question Invigilator?

Edit
Not a rant at all, if I was going to rant I’d have a big go about having to spend Easter doing the dutiful thing of driving all round the UK visiting relatives and not being able to ride my bikes for 2 weeks. But then as I only wear the trousers at work, I’ll shut the f up and do as I’m told……….

it is a safety thing. if i try to walk on a escalator i tend to go dizzy.

Not standing on the right, standing side by side, stopping immediately after getting off the escalator, not carrying a dog – all should be punishable offences.

there something that makes people fixed to the moving step?

They’re in no hurry?

What has it got to do with you asking what it has got to do with me anyway?

You’ve got me there, except I find it a bit odd that you’re so concerned about other peoples’ behaviour.

Don Simon,

You don’t know me and I never expressed concern, I just wondered why, that’s all.

You don’t know me and I never expressed concern, I just wondered why, that’s all.

And I wouldn’t want to for fear of finding my lifestyle being commented on on the interweb by a stranger.

I want to be the first post on this thread. Get out my way all you lot. I’ve got places to go, people to see. Look I’m talking on my mobile And barging past you. Look how busy and important I am. Don’t you know they’ve discounted cookware in Next Home in the top arcade?

Lol at TSY. The only time I walk up or down an escalator is on the Tube and I’m trying to catch a train, otherwise why the hell walk when the whole frackkin’ point of an escalator is to not have to walk! Perhaps that simple principle has managed to slip past the OP…

I’m with the OP – I bet you losers don’t run up the corridor when you’re on the train either 🙄

I’m with the OP – I bet you losers don’t run up the corridor when you’re on the train either

Don’t know what train you travel on, but the last time I went by rail, which was Feb last year, I could barely shuffle along the gangway, and I don’t think there’s been a train with a corridor in the coaches for over forty years.

CountZero,
Simple principle of escalators has not slipped past me, just can’t understand why people stop on them, I’m strictly in the get in get out ASAP when shopping centres are concerned. Obviously missing the point that it is a leisure activity and you should relish every moment and take your time.

You don’t get a dog and bark yourself

I’m with the Count. It’s the stair equivalent of running along next to your car.

Surprisingly, ergonomically, escalators are actually quite tricky to navigate to humans.

Your own stairwell at home will have a steeper pitch to it, as a consequence of having to have a lower tread due to space constraints.

There has been a surprising amount of work on optimal staircase design, as it’s actually an accidental “hotspot” within the home.

To accomodate the higher levels which escalators tend to run, (the floor to height difference of a shopping centre is not the same as your home) and the mechanism that allows for an escalator to arrive with a flat footfall at bottom or top, the actual stair is very steep as it starts to rise or decend, may be almost double your home stair, with which you are practiced in rising without armfuls of shopping.

Indeed “memory” might make you more likely to lose your footing on a forward moving, rising, moving stairwell, with an unfamiliar rise and tread to what you are used to.

Ultimately, if you are so pushed for time you need to run up and down, then it’s at your risk, and you are endangering other passengers and being inconsiderate of them in a narrow moving space. There are still a surprising amount of accidents on escalators annually, leading to lost limbs and or breaking bone injury.

It’s NOT just because people are lazy, but that at a “shopping” centre” they might be expected to er, be carrying shopping, and so it’s a safety aid and one which allows those of frailty (ie old, young, disabled) to shop safely.

Just because the op is a ss 29’er riding, Audi driving, male white youthful fit IT technician (well, he must be, he’s on SWT for heavens sake) with all the adviantages that this gives him, it’s no reason to have a go at those that aren’t, or that don’t want to endanger themselves with loads. Using an escalator correctly isn’t laziness like eating chips 30 times a week, nor is the OP a hero for sprinting up or showing off by using stairs.

If you go to London everyone automatically stands on the right on all escalators, even those not on the tube. You can spot people who’ve spent time in London elsewhere in the country because they are the ones standing to the far right in John Lewis etc.

If you go to London everyone automatically stands on the right on all escalators, even those not on the tube. You can spot people who’ve spent time in London elsewhere in the country because they are the ones standing to the far right in John Lewis etc.

I think you mean courteous people, ive been to london for all of 3 nights and i always stand on the right the rare occasions i use them as the signs suggests it is courteous to do so. Its the ignorant morons who stand in the middle, dosnt matter where they are from.

Jujuuk68,
Never done ss, 29 is so last year, don’t drive an Audi, I am a pain for any IT dept, never been on the SWT you speak of, didn’t run up/down the escalators, realised already that the floors where higher in the shopping centre than at home, I must be a disapointment to you. My FiL is 79 and walks with a stick, but managed to walk up/down the escaltors with some shopping as I followed him. (I only follow him has he has a habit of wandering off into any shop that might have a toilet).

More importantly, on escalators why does the handrail move slightly faster than the stairs, so making you end up leaning further and further forwards?

Phil, that happens when certain belts/pulleys inside the mechanism wear. It gets worse as the thing gets older.

I don’t understand all the desperation to justify lazy people in this thread. Lot’s of people are lazy and it’s becoming more and more common.

Commerce loves it that way, so it won’t change any time soon.

We have a lazy stupid culture of lazy stupid people.

The UK sucks right now. *weeps*

When you have have 60 ppm coming off an escalator you can’t stop at the top/bottom unless you want a broken leg/arm/some other bit. It has been interesting getting Legion modelling on the thing I’m working on and seeing the model break. Gulp.

Not standing on the right, standing side by side, stopping immediately after getting off the escalator, not carrying a dog – all should be punishable offences.

That’s harsh. It’d take me bloody ages to find a dog.

Haha! They’ve taken down the signs that used to say ‘Dogs must be carried’….

Whenever I am trying to get up an escalator, this guy is in the way

If you stand at the bottom of the escalator and grab the handrail really hard you can stop it. #

#you can also do this
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJYoV8Kq6Vo[/video]

molgrips – Member
If you go to London any place with enough escalators everyone people often automatically stand on the right on all escalators, even those not on the tube. You can spot people who’ve spent time in London elsewhere in the country because they are the ones standing to the far right in John Lewis etc.

ftfy

Well you could have it the other way… 😉

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE-swUMUiyI[/video]

I think ski has a point there, the OP didn’t take full advantage of the escalator and could have done some proper training, because of this the OP should be considered lazy.
FAIL.