Broken Escalator Phenomenon

[paranoid420]

Wasn't sure where to put this. That weird feeling when escalators become stairs.

Sunday June 12, 2016
Why is it so unnerving to walk up or down a broken escalator?

It can be disconcerting to walk on broken escalator — even though an escalator that is not working is simply a set of stairs.

On this week's installment of "Yes, It's a Thing," a Sunday Edition mini-series that explores some of the strange things we experience without knowing if they're all in our heads, Michael discovers that this feeling has a name — broken escalator phenomenon — and it has been studied by academics.

Dr. Raymond Reynolds lectures on the subject of motor control at the University of Birmingham in England. He was inspired to study the phenomenon by all the anecdotal reports he heard about people's discomfort walking on broken escalators in the London Tube.

We were in no doubt that they believed it could not move, and yet they walked on to it as if it would move. - Dr. Raymond Reynolds
Dr. Reynolds explains that the odd sensation many people feel walking on a broken escalator is more than simply perceptual. Escalators accelerate riders' bodies, so to compensate and avoid falling backwards, riders lean forward and walk slightly faster. In a study, Dr. Reynolds and his colleagues found that even when people knew the escalator they were about to step on to was broken, they still accelerated as if they were stepping on to a moving escalator.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayed...-walk-up-or-down-a-broken-escalator-1.3622459

 

[JamesWhitehead]

It is a bit unnerving but I'm sure I slow down. Escalator steps are steep, metallic and deeply grooved. They don't need to drag you through the mincer to do some nasty damage. Approaching a stalled escalator may produce the brief social anxiety of whether it is to be used at all but I don't think it's uncanny.

 

[Xanatic*]

Broken or stopped? Some escalators stop if nobody has used them in a while. Which gets awkward when you step onto them and they start moving in the opposite direction of that you thought they would.

 

[OneWingedBird]

WHen I step onto a non moving escalator, it takes me a few second of a vertigo type feeling before I can just walk up/down it, like a bit of my brain is compensating for the movement that doesn't come.

 

[GNC]

Why aren't escalators going down called descenders?

 

[rynner2]

Why aren't escalators going down called descenders?

I used to use a cafe called L'Escale in Brittany. The name simply means 'the Steps', and steps can be used to go up or down!

(Much as a musician can go up or down the scales! )

 

[Mythopoeika]

I have a problem with them, when going down.
I have to be careful where to put my feet, so I look to see what I'm doing.
However, the shiny grooves on the steps make my eyesight go blurry - a bit like a hypnotic effect.
I wish they'd paint the steps and give them a non-slip texture.

 

[Spudrick68]

Like Billy Connolly said, when getting to the end of an escalator I do that little girly step thing so that I get off it without going over. And...how many people when travelling on a moving walkway at an airport 'do' the Michael Jackson moonwalk thing?

 

[GNC]

I used to use a cafe called L'Escale in Brittany. The name simply means 'the Steps', and steps can be used to go up or down!

(Much as a musician can go up or down the scales! )

Do you know, I've been wondering about this for years (on and off, not consistently) and now you've given me a perfectly reasonable explanation - it's from the French. A thousand thanks, this is a weight off my mind.

 

[asparagus]

At one time or another (usually at an airport, for some reason) I have ended up having to run up a 'down' escalator to get where I needed to be. But last year, for the first time, I got stuck somewhere and the only way out was to run down an 'up' escalator. And this was ten times harder! Why should that be so?

 

[Mythopoeika]

At one time or another (usually at an airport, for some reason) I have ended up having to run up a 'down' escalator to get where I needed to be. But last year, for the first time, I got stuck somewhere and the only way out was to run down an 'up' escalator. And this was ten times harder! Why should that be so?

Interesting!
No idea.

 

[ChrisBoardman]

It is disorienting when you step onto a broken escalator, your mind is used to it moving.

 

[Old_Shoe]

I haven't measured and I don't know, but I suspect the rise on the escalator steps is a bit greater than the rise on ordinary stair steps. And as for the airport people movers, I've encountered those things in inoperative condition and I've noticed that people tend to stay OFF those. That's why I walk on them...it gives me a brief respite from blatherskites.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I haven't measured and I don't know, but I suspect the rise on the escalator steps is a bit greater than the rise on ordinary stair steps.

It's not just that - they are a bit bigger measured front to back than ordinary steps.
Then there's the serrated edge.

 

[Shady]

They should do ones like in Tesco, you just stand on it and it moves up to the next floor, no steps, much better, and no risk of the teeth getting you.

 

[rynner2]

They should do ones like in Tesco, you just stand on it and it moves up to the next floor, no steps, much better, and no risk of the teeth getting you.

Isn't that just a lift?!

 

[escargot]

But last year, for the first time, I got stuck somewhere and the only way out was to run down an 'up' escalator. And this was ten times harder! Why should that be so?

You're running downwards so maybe it's harder to keep your balance.

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

If it's like the one in Brighton Marina Asda, then it's a giant conveyor belt.

 

[Graylien]

I think they're called travelators. That's what I call them anyways.

They put one into the revamped Sainsburys in Kings Lynn in the late 80's. Me and my mate Steve used to love going up and down it on a Saturday afternoon. Then we'd ride trolleys round the car park.