With the great responsibility of driving, we have all learned the basic rules of the road: don't text and keep your eyes on the road.
Somehow, these ideas haven't really transferred over to the pedestrian rules of the Concourse.
Each of us is trying to get to class as quickly and painlessly as possible, but there are always some who feel more entitled to their journey than others.
The Concourse is busy enough between classes, and the Student Center is packed every day at noon. Yet these are peak times for the most careless of students to roam the campus, not looking or caring who gets in their way.
This epidemic of reckless walkers has only grown in the past few years, mostly in correlation with the popularity of the iPhone.
Most of the reckless walkers find their iPhones more interesting than their surroundings. While I have been one of the many to send a text on the go, I try to look up every so often and not text in the more populated areas. In this day and age it's almost impossible to remain technologically uninvolved with text messages, emails, Facebook and everything else on your phone, but that doesn't give anyone the right to bulldoze through a crowd and expect everyone to move out of their way.
Everyone already has enough difficulty ducking and weaving around the crowded Concourse, but it becomes almost impossible once a selfish walker assumes everyone will get out of the way while they tweet what they ordered from Starbucks.
Put the phone down and no one will get hurt.
If you're not socially involved on your phone, you might just find yourself midway through an actual conversation with a real human when all of a sudden the person you're talking to goes the other way. Rather than saying goodbye and picking up the conversation later, you whip your head around and keep walking. Before you know it, you've walked right into some innocent bystander. If you were in a car, this collision would have been your fault, but the rules of the Concourse are not as easily defined.
Avoid this type of distraction and wait until you see this friend again, or be like everyone else and text in class.
Just like the inevitable, unfortunate result of texting and driving, reckless walkers have the tendency to hit someone. You would think peripheral vision would help them avoid this, but even on an abandoned stretch they will eventually find someone to run into.
All of us have fallen victim to some type of reckless walker. This might not seem as dramatic or fatal as texting and driving because reckless walkers are an easily avoidable nuisance. But it's a nuisance nonetheless.
Just turn around, put the phone down and enjoy your journey to and from class.
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