Something that all non-British people living in the UK should keep in mind is the fact that most public places are inherently designed for walking on the left-hand side, exactly as cars are being driven on roads. Although Big Brother may not punish you for any offence related to walking where one shouldn’t walk, doing so can have some uncomfortable consequences.This doesn’t necessarily mean everybody here upholds this unwritten rule, so that you could only see people using sidewalks, corridors, alleys, pedestrian bridges etc in this orderly manner. What I mean is that the Brits unknowingly organize even the movement of people like the movement of vehicles.
No matter what a trivial cultural difference this may seem to many, I think it’s useful for anyone to be aware of it. Therefore, I strongly recommend this blog post, and subsequent comments for more details on the issue.
It’s very unlikely (even for a country with weird laws like the UK :-) that a normative act requires pedestrians to walk on the left, but it is highly advisable to do so. For instance, in a London underground station like the above, if you don’t walk on the “right lane,” you may suddenly have to face a flood of people coming towards you.
Then, if you circulated on the wrong track, you may find yourself in front of a moving stairway which descends, whilst you actually wanted to go up… or the other way around. When you’ve got heavy luggage and you’re in a hurry, and so are the scores of people behind you, that’s truly a nasty situation, isn’t it?
[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]
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