Someone asked this question at the wonderful 'Going Underground' blog, which is well worth a look anyway.

The comments on the entry linked below, should provide illumination on the subject :)

http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_london-underground_archive.html#109402838142422820

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Aha, so there is a reason. Cool :-)

(neat site, too - lots of interesting stuff there)

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Interesting, but not a very good reason. Like others, I have observed that most people in most countries walk and ride escalators on the same side as they drive, so the English rule is totally counter-intuitive.

Escalators are quite stable for those who are stationary, so the people who are racing up or (even more importantly) down are the ones who are likely to need their right hand to be able to hold on at times, so the supposed rationale for the rule is pretty lame anyhow.

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Sounds like a great big pile of steaming bollocks to me. My experience is that no better than 50% of Australians or USians imitate the road rules (ie keep to the side they would drive) when walking in public and that this percentage drops to 10% or less in England and Wales. The idea that tens of thousands of Londoners, who wander the footpaths of that city like stoned cows, would use escalators because of circumstances from a previous century strikes me as extremely unlikely.

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You forget that we are creatures of extreme habit... the escalators have signs *everywhere* telling you which side to walk on. People will follow them (and replace them) until they forget why the signs were there in the first place.

There are no signs to tell you which side of the street to walk on.

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The escalators in our stations used to have signs indicating that one should stand left, walk right, but they were all removed some years ago. Given that the Parliament station escalators were supposed to be the longest in the Southern hemisphere, walking up them is good exercise and saves quite a bit of time, though most people don't manage to keep walking all the way to the top anyhow. But, officially, walking or running on escalators is considered dangerous, and hence the signs were removed!

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Ah, so I was right, all the tosh on that annoying London Underground page about ladies and gentlemen being afraid of technology is a load of steaming bollocks. People do what they do because, as you admit, there are are signs everywhere telling them to. Why those who run the London Underground should tell them to stand on the right is outside the brief of this question of course.

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Regarding supermarkets, the USA has amazingly superior service. Plenty of checkouts have a separate bag-packer who is quite prepared to even help carry the groceries out to your vehicle!

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People stand all over the place on escalators here, *and* they sometimes stand at the top chatting after they get off! Which is not only irritating but rather dangerous to people coming up behind them.
CCA:)

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*smacks you for use of the word "chick"*

That or you end up standing behind the stupid idjits on the escalator who don't realise it's stand on the left, walk on the right, and have decided to take up the whole escalator, and so you miss your train sakljaskdjkjkawjsdal;'dssal;s *stabbity death*

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