Does anyone remember when we walked to the left hand side of the footpath in the direction of travel?

This is one of my pet hates.

I rate them as follows:

1. These bloody side-by-side baby-buggies that move along the pavements like a combine-harvester, forcing pedestrians into the road. They should be banned!

2. People who gather in a group to gossip right in a shop doorway or in the middle of a pavement.

3. Ditherers who, on leaving a shop, stand right in the doorway while they decide whether to turn left or right.

4. People who swing wide car doors open suddenly across a narrow footpath, without any care as to whether they hit somebody with it, or block the entire pavement.

5.Invalid carts that hare along the pavement at 15mph scattering terrified pedestrians, or suddenly shoot past you from behind. You can't hear the bloody things coming.

6. When two women with trolleys, and moving in the opposite direction, stop in the middle of a narrow supermarket aisle to gossip.

6. Women who gather in great numbers around a baby-buggy on the pavement to ooh and ahh and sigh and gurgle over a snivellung wailing brat.

7. Old women who suddenly stop their shopping trolley right in the middle of an aisle while they dither about whether to buy sliced white or a wholemeal.

People can be exceeding stupid and thoughtless can they not?

I have taken to carrying a sharp pointed steel-tipped cane to prod such cretins out of the way.

Yes I do. Things are very different now. I regularly have to walk along a certain stretch of road just as the infant and junior school kid are coming home with parents and, sometimes, other children in buggies. The footpath is just about wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

These young mums just seem to think that it is O.K. to walk in the centre of the path with a child in each hand and expect anyone coming towards them to step into the road. Their children have, obviously, not been taught to walk in single file and have no manners whatsoever.

I now walk on the inner side of the path against the wall and will not budge from that position. When I see these groups coming towards me I place my shopping trolley in front of me and continue walking towards them, making no eye contact at all. They have to do the moving and, as if by magic, they then DO know how to get into single file because they don't wish to step in the road.

I always had to be the one to give way to my elders and I am determined that now I am an elder I am not going to give way to children. They will never learn any rules when they get away with intimidating people.

I know what you are referring to.

I grew up in LA, where no one really walks but common sense would be not to block the sidewalk.

Lived for 6 months in NYC, that just wouldn't happen there, way too many people crossing and walking at once for anyone to be able to stop still long enough to even window shop or take a slow stroll.

We now live in Budapest and really the way people conduct themselves on the sidewalks is mind blowing.

They literally just stop dead in the middle of a narrow sidewalk and have a conversation with friends, walk straight out from shops into on coming walkers or just stand by themselves having a coffee and cig break, sometimes even drinking a can of beer in the middle of the walkway.

i have never seen people doing their business in the middle of the sidewalk like they do over here.

Just today 3 large men in work overhauls were blocking the cross walk each with a cig and a cup of espresso in their hands, they were not even trying to cross but just stood in front of the crosswalk.

I am starting to get used to it more, just walk around them like a turd in the road.

What is even more dangerous and irritating is the bikers and skateboarders using the sidewalks at break neck speeds.They have no respect for walkers and nearly run people over, they are to chicken to go on the streets where they belong, too afraid of the high speed car drivers but have no regard for anyone going slower then they are.

They should be given tickets for their wreckless behavior but so far I have not seen the cops giving them out.

Yes, and it would make life easier for everyone if people still did that. Parents just do not give their children instructions these days. When the younger generation are the middle aged their parents will be the older generation and their kids will be ruling their parents lives.

I remember polite days when people made room for one another. Here we have those God forsaken brats on their damn skate boards who feel the sidewalk is their own personal play ground. They have no respect many of them. I live up a series of graduated hills and they even get out in the middle of the road and deify autos to hit them.

Yes, I do. Unfortunately, the pace of modern life in America has, in many places, rendered civility and the rush to get somewhere as mutually exclusive concepts to most people born after 1970.

To my way of thinking, it does not matter what side of the road your walking on but when people more or less barrel down the side walk, like they own it, they not you are wrong. those people are usually from a state and or city where one has to do things like that in oder to get whee they are going on time, very much like the people in New York city for example. They are in a hurry hurry mode all the time.

I still keep to the left and will only move to the right for oncoming very young children, those I consider to be older than me and the disabled.

One of my pet hates is lack of courtesy by those who block the paths, with or without a buggy.

common sense and the rules of the road have gone to the wayside. it's pedestrian beware of the non pedestraians usurping the walk way.

As far as I know we still do. Maybe someday i'll have to live in the city. Then I'll curse at the ppl.