Lost Horizons

"Escalator Safety is easy to learn"

So the MTR is running its annual escalator safety campaign, deploying Escalator Safety Ambassadors to remind passengers how to use escalators safely, with corny messages, such as, "Stand clear, keep your toes away from the edge", and "Grandparents to please use the lift for a safe trip".
As well as Escalator Safety Ambassadors, dressed in bright green uniforms, they are using platform assistants to stand near the escalators with megaphones spouting recorded safety messages, which they will occassionally interupt, as they hurl abuse at some poor person who has violated the Escalator Safety Code. The people who police these wonderful stations will be concentrating on the escalators - always being mindful, not to stand in the way of several hundred passengers who are rushing for the train or the exit.
Meanwhile in other parts of the station, other passengers will be able to transgress all sorts of rules, because there is no one there to tell them what to do, and they always ignore tannoy announcements anyway. Like, yesterday, as I tried to get off the train at Central there was a mother and son sttod on the green arrow on the platform, blocking my exit from the train. To add to this heinous crime, the young lad was eating a butty. It was really his misfortune that his head was at the same height as my knee, so, when the mother tried to barge onto the train, dragging her offspring along, my knee struck the young lad causing him to cry out.
Wake up MTR! Control the crowds on the platforms, the escalators don't need your attention. I now have a sandwich stain on my trousers.

posted by Luke @ 1:02 PM