By Shane Rodgers
Our society only holds together through unwritten protocols that we are raised to respect.
These include walking or driving around red witch’s hats, even when they don’t seem to have a purpose, and not talking loudly on your phone at restaurants.
Perhaps the most important of these protocols is keeping left.
This is the law on the roads but has also been the norm on footpaths in Australia.
Until now.
Has anyone else noticed that almost as many people on footpaths and crowded places seem to go right to pass, as go left?
It has gone from an orderly passage of people to a mess of near misses and awkward passes. This has been dubbed “footpath dancing” by some.
I’m not even sure why this has happened.
My theory has been that we have a lot more people living here who originated in countries that drive on the other side of the road.
If going right is engrained from an early age overseas, I can see why it might be hard to adapt here.
When I ask friendly AI robots why the protocol has broken down, they offer some other theories.
These include:
- Digital distraction as “phone zombies” stare at their smart phones and meander all over the shop.
- A general breakdown in community etiquette and young people not having the social protocols drummed into them anymore.
- Reduced spatial awareness.
- Intentional non-conformity or laziness.
None of these trends sound particularly positive. In fact, if you throw in electric scooters invading walk spaces, it can be quite dangerous.
A few times I have seen elderly people almost knocked to the ground by fast walkers who do not keep left.
It also seems to be getting harder to pass slow walkers if you are trying to pass them from behind.
Many of the phone zombies seem to have developed the knack of taking up an entire 2m-wide footpath. To get past them you need to go onto the road, into a garden, or swing on a tree like Tarzan.
I remember as a kid that there were a couple of streets in inner-Brisbane that had white lines in the middle of the footpath, presumably to divide the walkers left and right.
It raises an interesting question about how society really monitors its unwritten protocols and whether basic courtesy is indeed breaking down.
Sometimes these small things are a sad forward indicator of deeper divides and changes that will make us a lesser community.
Australia already has a reputation as a place of signs telling us everything we are not allowed to do.
Surely we don’t need signs telling people to keep left on the footpath. Or legislation. Or footpath police. Or witch’s hats in the middle of every footpath.
Shane Rodgers is the author of “Tall People Don’t Jump – The curious behaviour of human beings”.
