Down South

[DavyR]

I haven't got the book to hand at the moment, but the one I'm currently reading, "London: a social history" by Roy Porter, records exactly the same observations (the headlong rushing about) by foreign visitors to London in Tudor and Stuart times, so it's not exactly a modern phenomenon!

 

And traffic jams in London caused by horse-drawn vehicles were notorious!

[habilis]

Particularly in London, everything is quick. Everyone wants to be first in the queue (that's if they do queue): for the train, to the next set of traffic lights, to get on the bus......I wonder if it's an increase in competitiveness caused by crowding. I notice a marked difference in quickness between the West Country and the Home Counties, people in the latter tend to amble along pavements and make no attempt to avoid one another.

 

But all things change. When I first lived in the West, I'd chuckle at the roundabouts as motorists would pause and stare at other drivers, wondering who was going to go first! Now you need to be dammed quick off the mark to avoid another driver racing at you.

[gozzer]

Particularly in London, everything is quick. Everyone wants to be first in the queue (that's if they do queue): for the train, to the next set of traffic lights, to get on the bus......I wonder if it's an increase in competitiveness caused by crowding. I notice a marked difference in quickness between the West Country and the Home Counties, people in the latter tend to amble along pavements and make no attempt to avoid one another.

 

But all things change. When I first lived in the West, I'd chuckle at the roundabouts as motorists would pause and stare at other drivers, wondering who was going to go first! Now you need to be dammed quick off the mark to avoid another driver racing at you.

 

 

I'm not from the "sticks" Leeds is pretty crowded as well, but I haven't noticed the same urgency or disregard for other people in any other major city in the coutry. I think it must be a competition thing.