The Matter of Pedestrian Overtaking

Vikram was not in a hurry.

He wanted to be honest about this. He was not going to a meeting. He was going to a pharmacy that was open for another two hours and required no appointment. He had, genuinely, nowhere to be.

The man ahead of him was walking slowly.

Not dramatically slowly. Not the slow of someone in distress or difficulty. The slow of someone who had decided that this particular Tuesday afternoon belonged to them, and that the footpath was an appropriate venue for a thoughtful, unhurried journey.

The gap between Vikram's natural walking pace and the man's natural walking pace was perhaps four steps per minute.

Vikram did the calculation automatically. He could overtake. To overtake, he would need to accelerate enough to create a passing window, navigate around the man on the right, and then either continue at the higher speed or decelerate noticeably once past.

Deceleration after passing a stranger looked like something.

He did not overtake.

He reduced his own pace to match the man ahead. This was not a decision he made. It happened the way traffic adjustments happen: quietly, without announcement, while his brain continued thinking about the pharmacy.

He walked at the man's pace for one block.

The man turned left.

Vikram accelerated back to his natural speed, walked another block, and arrived at the pharmacy. He selected a shampoo. He stood in a short queue.

On the walk back, another person was walking behind Vikram at a pace that suggested they were waiting for a gap.

Vikram gave no gap.

This was not intentional either.

The second time pedestrian overtaking reshapes a route, it becomes policy. Nobody updates the policy. The footpath continues to operate under informal etiquette that everyone follows and nobody has agreed to.