sidewalk etiquette

[angledge]

Is there an accepted set of rules for walking on the sidewalk? I've always felt that sidewalks should be treated like roads. For example, if you live in the United States, you should walk on the right side of the sidewalk (like you drive on the right side of the road), pass on the left, & if you have to stop, move over so you aren't blocking the progress of others.

Obviously, Brits & other left-side-driving weirdos should also walk on the left side of the sidewalk.

Do these simple rules exist only in my own head, or do other people know them too?

***cross-posted to rq_version2***

Comments

[teal-cuttlefish.livejournal.com]

To repeat my question upthread:

Gosh, I'm fat and in a wheelchair. Should I be watching for you so you don't stab me in frustration? If so, I need a picture; at least I have some kind of photo thing that looks likely to be blu_matt.

[vulgarbarbarian.livejournal.com]

This is a comment about etiquette, not weight or anything else. This sort of thing (having a bunch of people walking together on the sidewalk in such a way that they impeded the progress of other pedestrians without giving a fuck about the inconvenience they were causing) happened to me numerous times in Brooklyn, and the offenders always shared the characteristics that they were female, overweight, and walked slow. I never experienced this sort of disrespect from anyone in a wheelchair, so you would seem to be in the clear.

[teal-cuttlefish.livejournal.com]

Methinks your stereotype subroutine is in overdrive, but if that's what you choose to believe, I'm certainly nowhere near enough to show you my perspective.

[vulgarbarbarian.livejournal.com]

I work in midtown Manhattan, and I will definitely agree with you that there are ambling groups of all sorts of people there. Mostly, they poke along and get in the way because they are tourists, but sometimes you will even see heterogeneous groups of New Yorkers adopting these pedestrian postures. When I lived in the financial district, I never had much trouble with this except around Trinity church with the tourists again. The residents and commuters pretty much moved about courteously even in battery park and the mall under the trade center. When I moved to Brooklyn I also had few problems with discourtesy except around Montague Street, where I was sometimes held up by the aforementioned groups of large ladies. It might have been the same group each time for all I know, but it is definitely an empirical observation that they were always female and overweight, as I stated in my previous reply.

In fact my mother is a fair bit overweight and has trouble getting around because of her knees, but she has the courtesy not to get in the way of other pedestrians unnecessarily, which separates her from the people I was complaining about.