Quote:
Originally Posted by DON10E
The pages of this thread I read did not seem to give a scientific reason that one way aisles in the supermarket are safer. It’s the same number of people, isn’t it? When I’ve gone shopping I felt like I was on a game show. The item I want is six feet away, but I have to go all the way around to get it. I’m good with that if there’s a good reason why. It seems like it takes me a lot longer to complete my shopping and doesn’t that mean we are all spending more time in an enclosed area? So how is that safer?
I’m not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand. Anyone?
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It's math and geometry.
Let's use an aisle. A nice big aisle. We have a shopper with a shopping cart in front of her, because she's pushing it. She stops to check out something on the shelf to her right.
Now we have someone coming down from the opposite end, and he stops adjacent to the woman, with his cart in front of him, while he looks on a shelf to HIS right.
Now, we have a guy without a shopping cart coming up behind the woman, and he wants to pass by. But we also have a woman and her two kids beside her, with a shopping cart, coming from the other direction, trying to pass the guy.
In order for the guy without the cart to pass the woman at the same time the lady with the two kids is trying to pass the guy with the cart, they all have to go down the middle of the aisle, facing each other and passing each other in VERY close proximity. As in - bumping shoulders.
The one-way scenario REDUCES this. It doesn't eliminate it, but it does reduce it.
You won't have people coming within inches of each other, while facing each other, in order to pass the people in front of them.
You'll still have people trying to pass, but it'll be a single lane of "people trying to pass" right down the middle, instead of people coming from both directions trying to create two "passing" lanes in the middle.
One passing lane vs. two passing lanes, all taking up the same amount of real estate.
Reduced risk. That's what it's about.