There has been a lot of chatter lately from several of my Facebook friends about escalator incidents. Once the topic is started, there are lots of additional comments as it seems that just about everyone has had some kind of an incident lately on a set of moving stairs! Most of them seem to center around folks (or groups of folks) who get to the top or bottom of an escalator, get off, and proceed to stop dead, totally forgetting for the moment that there are people behind them who will soon be up their collective backsides! Cell phones seem to almost always be part of the mix and the lack of ability to text and walk seems to be at the heart of a lot of the incidents, but that's not all. There are also the groups of people who seem to get off an escalator without a clear idea of where to go next and instead of stepping aside to make that decision, seem to be immobilized!
I myself have had a couple of these recently. One morning, coming up the 3 story escalator from the LIRR level of Penn Station at 8AM a young lady in front of me was too busy texting on her phone to move away from the escalator as she got to the top, forgetting that there was a steady stream of hundreds of people right behind her! She didn't stay there long before she was shoved out of the way. One afternoon I was going down an escalator when two young guys in front of me stepped off and stopped dead so that they both could share a text that one had just received. The gentleman in front of me perfectly expressed my sentiments when he said, "Tell me you two are kidding! Get the hell out of the way your jerks!" He had the size to carry it off!
Then there are escalator walkers. Now, personally I don't think escalators are designed to be walked up or down....something about the relation of the height of the steps to the width, but lots of folks obviously don't share my feelings. So, what do you do?? Do I act like I am the only person in the world or do I acknowledge that others in the world think differently than I do? So here are what I think the bare minimum should be for escalator rules:
1 - If there is a line to get onto an escalator, wait on it. Don't walk ahead of those waiting and push your way in front of someone else. We all have some place to be.
2 - Please make using the escalator your main job not secondary to talking or texting on the phone, talking with your friends, window shopping, daydreaming or whatever else might occupy you.
3 - Step on smartly and if you are one person, stay to the right so others can pass you if they should so choose (and because this is America and not Great Britain, stay to the right not the left so the walkers don't have to be part of an obstacle course).
4 - When you get to the top or the bottom of the escalator, please move off the moving stairs and out of the way if you are unsure of where to go next, or otherwise perplexed.
I think if we all followed these simple rules life would be easier for all escalator users. Who am I kidding...do I really think anyone cares? Oh well, I can dream...right?
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