On a recent medical declaration I had to cite an example for balance and stability. I wrote this:
A significant cause for concern is traversing the escalators on London Underground; where users want to walk past stationary people on the escalators. If someone clips me accidentally and I lose balance... Well I don't want to think about it to be honest. But it wouldn't be just me injured. Hence why I use the lift where available!
Last time I was in London I saw someone drop a laptop bag at the top of a, thankfully, empty escalator
going down. As the bag somersaulted end to end from top to bottom. By the time the bag got to the bottom it had picked up a tremendous rate of knots which was quite frightening... If it had been an up escalator and someone had been trying to send a tweet from a smartphone and/or not looking what they were doing, or worse a small child... That could have been a very, very nasty accident. Put it this way. The speed that thing was going down the escalator, I wouldn't have fancied my chances in getting out of the way quick enough!
Also I think the person who redesigned the layout in London Bridge Station should re-evaluate the escalators sightings and the entry/exit to the bogs. If you're going down the escalator it's not a problem and you can in essence do a 180 degree left turn. If you're in the walk of people trying to go up and want to deviate via the toilets on your right... You have to fight your way through those coming down also on your right... Not ideal.
Same with the traffic layout in Southgate Bath. Traffic Lights there cause no end of confusion, Cars want to do an almost 300 degree turn onto Dorchester Street from the Southgate Underground Car Park. They're not meant to and instead are supposed to do a round the block tour of Avon Street. There has already been one very bad accident there with a pedestrian and a bus...
Only last Saturday did I have some very irate stuck up woman in a 4x4 blast her horn at me and giving me the V's because I was in her way. Problem was, I had crossed Dorchester Street on foot on a Green Man so had 100% right of way. I wasn't able to move too quickly which seemed to be the crime of the century and angered her even more. Once I had got across the crossing she pulled up into the bus stop, got out of this ridiculous vehicle and began to attempt an argument; I think her passengers might have egged her on. I just said she might be more interested in that the Number 13 Bus had just blocked her in (it had).
I then received the question "Look at my face, what do you see, do you see how funny I think this?" However the answer: "I see someone who likes their makeup" was not an acceptable one... How I am still alive to tell this story... I know not...!
Click on the map to explore geographics
