Situational Awareness is defined as:

“The perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status”

And Kiwis are shit at it.

In the interests of a social experiment (and because I was a soooo bored) I took myself to Sylvia Park (a mall in Auckland for those reading who don’t know).

I have made some observations:

People don’t seem to understand the concept of walking in straight lines.

People don’t seem capable of scanning the ‘room’ and working around it.

People don’t seem to understand the keep left rule. (You all DO know the keep left rule, right?)

Several times people walking towards me gave me eye contact (a good start you’d think) then walk in to me. Apparently I’m supposed to give way to them? I was maintaining line and pace… correctly. So, what???

Several times people exited stores, looked around, saw me, and then walked out in front of me, and stopped dead in their tracks, thereby creating a situation whereby I needed to swerve or stop in order to avoid unsolicited physical contact.

Several times family groups exited stores, spread themselves across the available walking space, and stopped dead in front of me leaving me no where to go.

What is this madness?

Are we so self-absorbed we don’t think about the serenity of correct pedestrian habits and protocols? Do we not care about the perambulation of others?

As a country we can do better. We need to do better.

Anything else is chaos.