Jane Messina on her sidewalk issues (that’s pavement to the rest of us)

I have been very proud of my invention of the phrase “sidewalk rage” based on my experience as an Oxford pedestrian, and decided it was time for me to share. Unfortunately, the Internet has informed me that I am not that original, and am in no way the inventor of this phrase.

More worrisome, though, is that all sources seem to focus on bustling, fast-paced cities like New York and London.

If I have sidewalk rage in Oxford, do I need anger management counselling? Or do oblivious blockheads exist everywhere and deserve my fury? So which is it, mental illness, or rightful indignation? I’ll let you decide after I share my grievances, and if you conclude that I have unresolved resentment from my six-lane motorway-filled youth in Los Angeles, then so be it. Firstly, I will accept that many people walking in Oxford are tourists, shoppers, or simply out for a stroll through what I agree is a beautiful city worth stopping to appreciate. In fact, I’m often one of those people.

But more often, I’m a person who does not own a car or a bicycle, whose two legs and feet are their vehicle. So when I’m out for a saunter, I try to be considerate of others sharing sidewalk space with me who may have somewhere to be.

Unfortunately, most ramblers in Oxford are not this mindful, and there are two types of offenders.

The first type of offender is a single person known to me as a “distracted narcissist”. They look down, texting their friends as they walk, meandering along just fast enough to be impassable, but just slow enough to drive a person mad. I know this isn’t as dangerous as texting while driving, but it’s just as impolite; just like drivers who want to text, these people should “pull over”. Instead, they are wilfully unaware of other pedestrians or the world around them, giving others no option but to step into the road, jog a little, and hop back on the sidewalk quickly enough to avoid being hit by a bus.

The second type of offender is a group of people I like to call a “human barricade”. They prefer to walk four- or even five-abreast, and even if aware of the existence of a quite small woman needing not very much space walking towards them, breaking linear formation for two seconds would be too much of a bother.

The clear answer is for her to step into the road, jog a little, and hop back on the sidewalk quickly enough to avoid being hit by a bus. So before you decide whether I’m bitter or my indignation is justifiable, I’ll leave you with a story. In 2012, Bill Clinton visited Oxford to speak at a renewable energy forum. As I approached a human barricade comprising the former president and his security entourage in St Giles, guess who stepped off the kerb to let me through? Hint: some might say he’s actually an important person.