What is it with Commuters?

Some other members of my course have also raised this phenemenon of rude, inconsiderate, or even woefully blind commuters, too wrapped up in their own rush to notice anybody else.

Today it was my turn.

Waterloo station, heading towards the escalators for the underground from the platform and this man came barrelling towards me.

I noticed he was trailing a case on wheels behind him so I realised side stepping was only going to trip me up. So I stopped, as his then course would miss me to my left.

But no he seemed oblivious to my considerate gesture and actually continued to move towards me, changing direction even. Perhaps if he had looked up rather than blindly assuming I would leap out of his way into a wall I would not have got irritated enough to add to the growing social study of commuter behaviour. Or perhaps he did not even see me engrossed in clutching his morning cuppa.

In my opinion he was a fool!

After all I thought we were meant to be social animals. So how come we seem to have lost the ability to organise ourselves properly when we come together en masse. The above is a less dangerous microcosmic example of the kind of blind tunnel mentality that helps cause multiple pile-ups on the motorways. One man (or woman, but admittedly it is statistically a male) in a rush suddenly sees a bigger opening for a lane change then he would normally attempt and bang! all hell breaks loose.

So remember your journey to work. You may have done it a thousand times. But always remain alert. Do not autopilot. Think where people are in relation to you and try to move accordingly.

This way we may all have less collisions. In cars or otherwise.