With Black Friday and Christmas fast approaching, millions of shoppers will be pouring into retailers across the UK and in many parts of the world. It's always fun to see the desperate ones on Christmas Eve running around like headless chickens trying to grab something, but let's be honest, that person is all of us.
But while you're feverishly trying to tick off your family and friends on your shopping list, there's one thing that can make people very, very angry: slow walkers. Who knows why they move at a glacial pace, but it's infuriating trying to dodge and weave around hordes of shoppers like you're running to the try line in a rugby match.
Well, one shopping centre in the UK is hoping to keep everyone happy by introducing a 'fast lane'. Lakeside Centre in Essex has rolled out a 220-metre red line around its complex, which looks like it could fit three people side by side.
Credit: Mastercard
According to the Metro, the average walking speed in British shopping centres is 4.5 km/h (2.85mph), but that drops by 20 percent during the Christmas period. There are also four different types of fast walkers.
More than half are considered 'dodgers', who move around slow walkers, darting around them to get to their destination. Then about a third are 'skaters', who are a bit more graceful in their efforts to keep pace by politely moving through the crowd.
The final 26 percent is split between 'tutters', who remain stuck and just complain, and the 'bulldozers' who pretty much just say 'fuck it' and move with such determination that others just get out of the way.
Credit: Mastercard
It's not the first place to introduce a fast lane, with Meadowhall Shopping Centre chucking one together in 2014 after a 10-year-old girl complained about dreaded slow walkers. Chloe Nash-Lowe's letter to the facility said: "I am incredibly disappointed by people walking around your shopping centre - it annoys me so bad I want to scream.
"You should stop people walking slow as people are in a rush for work and this could cause people being late."
She hit the nail on the bloody head and ushered in a new world for fast walkers. Hopefully shoppers don't emulate scenes on motorways, where motorists forget which lane they're travelling in and don't realise they're holding up a bunch of people.
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Sources: Metro, Mastercard, Mirror
Topics: Black Friday, Christmas, Shopping, Essex