Hey, It's world wide! Not only large cities. It happens all the time here in little Kalispell Montana.
Merry Christmas everyone.

Can happen ANYWHERE. Get over it and enjoy your vacation. Be careful in some parts of Italy...they do it on purpose to bump in to you and do the pickpocket number!

I'm actually glad to read this post. I thought it was just me who was perplexed by this. I was taught from a very early age to move to the right, and never EVER take up the whole sidewalk by walking two or more abreast when there are oncoming pedestrians. I guess it's just a matter of what kind of etiquette you are taught. Just seems like common decency to me to allow people to pass on the sidewalk.

I spent this past summer in London and was amazed that in such a well-mannered, organized, mind the gap and wait in the queue, kind of country that people were so rude on the sidewalks. Then again, I was in school in the Regent's Park area so perhaps it was mostly clueless, distracted tourists who were knocking me off the sidewalk and into traffic.

My only defense was to stop dead in my tracks while looking directly at the oncoming group - they always seemed shocked (shocked!) but would immediately stagger allowing me to stay on the sidewalk. Too often I wasn't in a confrontational mood, however, and would end up walking in the street.

This thread has reminded me of the very strange experience of being bumped into in Korea. It is not part of the culture to say "sorry," or "excuse me," so no one does. Even though I knew that, and knew that I shouldn't be offended, I found myself thinking "How rude!" and feeling very annoyed. It was an interesting contrast between what I knew and what I had been conditioned my entire life to feel.

My biggest pet peeve in this area is not walkers but shopping cart pushers. I always manage to dodge and circle around any walls or groupies, not a problem.

But people who park their shopping cart in the middle of an aisle and then leave to find something really get to me. When anyone tries to move their cart to the side, they come rushing back, glaring, like they have been personally violated!

MOVE OVER, FOLKS! All 115 pounds of me is barrelling through here! DARN!

Fortunately, aisle hogs are few and far in between.

This occurs everywhere I believe. It's happening here at home and it's happened to us in Paris. A few years ago our then 10 yr. old son was jostled off the sidewalk in Paris so he wasn't happy about that. Same thing happened while taking the metro. But as I said that's happening here at home too!