A little venting allowed - Best Social Distancing Fail you've seen
So, most people have had 2 weeks or so to practice social distancing, but it sure must not be registering with some people. Or, they have a total lack of self awareness. Anyway, I thought it might release a little collective steam sharing some of the better social distancing fails we've seen so far.
While I've had my share of people stopped in the middle of the grocery aisle staring at the list do some form of mental inventorying as people queue up behind them, these people appear to be a dime a dozen. Happens every time I'm in the grocery store.
Yesterday, I had to go to my local butcher to get more meat. I want to support their small independent market, so I'm willing to run the coronavirus gauntlet and extra time. They use the big paper roll dispenser to get a number to wait your turn for service. As I was walking towards the dispenser, another lady stops in front and grabs her number, then just stands there and has a lovely conversation with her daughter. I'm debating what to do and decide the best move may be to just wait her out. I'm certainly not in a hurry. A few minutes later another lady walks toward the number dispenser and pulls up short realizing there's no way she's going to stay 6' away from the gab fest going on at the dispenser. She stands there, shuffles around a bit assuming some motion may catch their eye, must have been giving them a bit of the stink eye at the same time, and the lady starts to move. But, she moves all of maybe one foot, two if you are generous. When gabby lady gets her number called for service, she finally breaks the log jam and moves away from the number dispenser.
Oh, gabby lady was also wearing a mask, so that implies some awareness of coronavirus.
She needs to go to Bolivia.
Well, maybe I do have something to share for this thread.
A lot of people were at a park in my town (Broomfield, Colorado) this afternoon, and some of those people evidently started a pretty big grass/brush fire that caused the park to now be closed.
That's a pretty-big FAIL right there. But I guess everyone is social distancing now. :-)
So what?!
Yesterday I went for a 17 mile bike ride through main roads in Metro Detroit so I could drop a bottle of booze off at a friend’s house (no contact delivery). 75% of the people were accommodating - and I would cut on the lawn, cross the road, or circle through a parking lot to give extra distance. But a few people didn’t even budge, and 3 people didn’t yield at stop signs and I had to swerve or fishtail to not hit their cars. A few people were gathered together at a bus stop but one guy was standing far away. Most restaurants were closed but a few like a pizza joint were packed with takeout. I know that’s okay but not my style nor do I think it is smart. Also saw 5 masks and many gloves littered on the ground. Gross, wasteful and not to mention dumb They can be reused. Not ideal, but for a weekly trip to the grocery store or gas station, they are better than nothing.
I don’t know what the rules are where you live, but in California:
As a general rule, adult bicyclists have the same duties and responsibilities as vehicle drivers. Thus stop at stop signs and red lights just like all other vehicles (CVC 21200).
The next time I see a bicyclist stopping at a stop sign will be the first.
I came to say that in most locations bikers are supposed to be on the road riding in the direction of traffic so this guys should not be complaining about people not getting out of the way because he is likely in the wrong.
I’ve been pulled over on my bike twice. Once for a stop sign and once for a red light. Both times the officer apologized to me and gave me a warning which was odd. I think there is a gap between the law and how it is enforced. If they started enforcing it like the cross walk laws then you would see a lot more compliance I think.
But it is also complicated by a significant difference in in who can get hurt by a bike running a stop. If a bike runs a stop they are really only putting themselves in danger. If a car runs a stop they are putting other people in danger.
I upvoted you because you make good points. And I think that at least 95% of people on bikes are assholes who don’t care to follow the rules. Those people are the worst. I might be in this group but I try not to be.
I stop for all pedestrians in crosswalks even if there isn’t a stop.
I personally take a risk based approach to which stop signed I obey. This boils down to: if there is a car approaching that has a chance of being a the stop at the same time as me, I stop.
Seems like you're assuming he was riding on the sidewalk. A lot of neighborhoods in my area don't have sidewalks.
Point taken. But I did qualify that he is “probably” in the wrong.
He took “main roads” and “crossed the road”. So there is some assumption about sidewalks being available because they were main. Either way he shouldn’t be crossing the road to ride against traffic or going on lawns. Further, he should be yielding right of way to pedestrians.
If there was not a side walk, I would ask: why are there so many pedestrians in the road. I know there some area where there’s no shoulder or level ground to walk on but that doesn’t sound “main” to me.
Serious rider here. Stopped at 10 signs on a ride 90 minutes ago. The only ones I ignore are away from human eyes. I hate to see folks deviate from the law and common sense - they screw it up for the rest of us.
The other day a teenage girl was seriously lucky that it was me and not another driver. (right place / right time / right person)
I was driving in my neighborhood in Royal Oak, MI. I was going south and about to cross a residential intersction that I had no stop sign for, but East & West bound traffic do have a 2 Way stop.
A teenage girl riding a bike, with Airbuds & no helmet, casually runs the stop sign and makes a left towards me, without looking either way before she did. Finally she saw me as she rounded her turn, long after I had stopped.
Her eyes popped out of her head when she did finally see me! Rightfulyl so, she was inredibly lucky I saw her at the earliest possible moment, it was never close. She could have been killed if someone else was driving that was alson on their phone, talking to a passenger, or not familiar with the neighborhoodt. I yelled at her "You need to watch what your doing", but she didn't hear me because Airbuds.
This also likely never would have happened for multiple reasons if it was not for quarantine.
We sell farm fresh eggs. We only have a few customers so we usually put them outside with their name on the package. So this morning a guy is coming by to pick up a large order of duck eggs so it was going to take a minute to get them ready. The doorbell rings and I open the main house door planning to give him the hold on a minute sign through the storm door.
He had already opened my storm door and is standing on my threshold and as soon as I open the door he steps right into my house. WTF man?
I took my 93 year old father to my sisters house, where we sat in her driveway at least 10 feet from each other. We had our social distance and then some figured out, but when my sisters granddaughter came running out, she ran right up to my dad to give him a hug. Happened so fast that my sister nor I could stop it. A bittersweet moment.
Too many times to count lately where some idiot with no awareness, moves in too close for no good reason. Meijer is now on my list of most dangerous places.
My wife mentioned that we could do something similar with her parents seeing our son in their driveway or something similar and I thought of what you mentioned before she got any further with her plan. Our son would go sprinting to one of them or have a meltdown when we told him he couldn’t hug them.
We had a fire with the family last night and it ended up being 10-15 people that gathered from the neighborhood for a couple hours. My wife was freaking out but at the same time we miss the hell out of those friends so it’s incredibly difficult to say “go home”
It was actually great therapy to talk and share all or our feelings but at the same time your thinking “is this really bad what we are doing?”
I dunno man. I really don’t.
Freaking out may not have been nesessary, but your wife's concern was appropriate. "I'm happy to see all of you, but we really can't be this close together" would have been the correct response.
Well, you definitely took a risk. We’ve had “over the fence” conversations with neighbors with spacing. The safe thing is Zoom happy hours we’ve been having with friends. The other night four of us had “men’s music night” and listened to tunes, swapped stories, and compared our different drinks for a few hours. It was a welcome distraction. I realize not everyone has the products or expertise to use Zoom (or other video service), but it’s definitely the safe way to congregate.
Hey, are you the real Tim Allen?
If so, can I get a refund for the stuff you sold me in Kalamazoo decades ago... it wasn't very good.
Sorry, Wilson....statute of limitations and that kind of stuff...
I get where you are coming from, I really do... problem is a few hundred of these little exceptions can lead to issues. Because the difference between a surging but keeping up hospital and overwhelmed hospital is surprisingly small... Even for a large hospital, an extra 200 COVID ICU patients over a few weeks would be overwhelming..
Walk into my local grocery store and three associates are bookending the 8 foot door opening. They werent greeters or holding the door open. Just 3 people socializing at the entrance. Kind of goes against the whole spirit of social distancing. The third guy was also halfway between the three which was really awkward for people coming in.
Welcome to Costco, I love you.
Go away, ‘batin
I went for a run the other day on Belle Isle and saw a full out 5 on 5 game (with subs!) and they weren't playing James Harden defense.
Probably the group of abortion protestors outside the abortion clinic here that felt the need to all be huddled around each other as they prayed.
No social distancing at a few places I have been to. Like most, grocery store where people crowd to get to supplies, ie meat and freezer sections and of course the tp if stocked.
Group of Bikers about 50ish give or take, all at the gas station, all huddled together associating.
Tool rental, had to till the garden for my mom today. Go to the tool rental and everyone coming walks right up rather than just stand 6ft or more away. Like people, it’s still social distancing.
People just not paying attention and are fine with their own groups and it’s bs cause it’s going to force us all to have to keep doing this till the gov shuts it all down and we are forced to for a month.......
My wife and I last night. Definitely the BEST social distancing fail I’ve seen. It was awesome.
So you watched her with someone? Kinky.
My neighbors possibly had coronavirus. Both have had some of the symptoms. Definitely still within the 14 quarantine period, but they decided to leave some treats they baked for the kiddos at our front door. Umm...thanks but not thanks. I threw it out and texted them that they were delicious.
Sneaky.
I was doing that before the virus. Never take homemade food from homes that have cats.
Last week we ordered food from a place called Pita Inn. Those who live in the Chicago suburbs might be familiar with it. Anyway, we placed the order online, expecting to go and pick it up curbside like at most restaurants nowadays. We get there, and there's no one outside, so my husband goes inside. He comes right back out, so pissed, and says, "It is fucking chaos in there! There are long lines, no one's wearing masks, some people are ordering there rather than picking up, and it's taking forever!" We had already paid for the food, so he decided to go back in and brave it. So far, he hasn't gotten sick.
Last week, I ordered from a local place and thought they were doing curbside service. Had to walk in and they were holding everyone in the entrance foyer. So, with 3 people in there, we could stay apart. Something was going on with the orders and the wait became lengthy. Another person arrives and now we’ve got 4 people scrambling to stay apart. It was working until a guy from DoorDash barged in and went to the front of the line. The women across from me gave the best “I’m so offended” face.
You have to approach this like driving and watch out for other people who really don’t care or understand. Also, my dog won’t leave my side, he just doesn’t understand the social distancing thing at all...what an idiot.
Unless the stores start limiting customers to one person, one cart soon this will spread indefinitely.
Meijer, Kroger, Walmart are virus dispensaries now, as whole families are herding touching items, and putting them back on shelves.
With medical entomology and biochemistry background, it's the store stocking staff who will start catching and transmitting.
Stay out of the Dollar Stores as they were as sanitized as porta-jons normally.
Just too many touch points between the merchandise, dairy/freezer doors, and check-out screens/credit card machines.
It's the perfect containment system, unless you are walking around the big box stores applying sanitizer every few contact points.
Unfortunately, we aren't going to move on to temperature scans to gain entry to mass shopping/crowd locations/work places, so get ready for continued extensions of stay at home.
And I would not recommend petting other people's dogs, which I watch every day in my sub.
While watching the local news on WZZM 13 (GR) a couple hours ago, I heard them mention Meijer and Walmart are instituting limits in each of their stores on the number of customers allowed inside at a time, each store with a different limit according to the square footage of the particular building.
Maybe this new policy will finally convince people of the need to shop solo rather than hauling along the entire family. Obviously that still won't work for a few such as the elderly infirm or the young single parent at times, but obviously too, a lot of folks haven't been able to figure that out on their own yet either.
(edit 9:10 pm: here's more complete information about the latest Meijer policy changes, as I just saw this online
Noticed that Home Depot and Costco already did this. Unfortunately the people were lined up in a huge line to get in without good distancing.
Same for Lowe's, a buddy of mine in management at an Oakland county Lowe's has mentioned exactly the same thing in a couple phone conversations we've had in the last week.
Until the vast majority in this country finally "get it" to avoid getting the virus instead, the rest of us are potentially screwed.
Definitely a frustrating situation, but couldn’t someone kindly ask the woman to move away from the dispenser? She probably didn’t realize she was holding up the line.
A roundhouse kick to the solar plexus is better.
Monday morning I was about 10 feet from some guy in the grocery store and he turned his head right in my direction and coughed without covering his mouth.
I give you permission to give him a punch to the throat next time.
Was in a grocery store and people were doing the social distancing thing pretty well. In fact, I didn't see any of the customers there getting too close. I was waiting in line to check out at the stickers they had on the floor and during that time, the store manager walked directly in front of me, almost to the point of touching, four times. She did not have any mask on or other protective gear, like all the other employees had.
One of our engineers, whose live-at-home daughter is a TSA agent (and confirmed to have Covid), developed symptoms last week. He thought it would be a good idea to come into the hangar on Sunday and gather his things to work from home. Well his actions ended up shutting down the hangar for two weeks and forcing about a dozen techs to go unpaid during that time. Smart guy.
Warning: bigoted stereotype alert.
Not a lot of “smart guys” wind up working for the TSA.
Edit: Nm. It’s the guy’s daughter who works for TSA.
Neighbors (few houses down) planned on moving for a few months .Their moving- yard sale yesterday,today and Sunday .. turned into a put stuff on the curb,with sign reading "free stuff" .Went from 'hope we can make a little $ and lighten the moving load....to here take our stuff.
Yes people were taking the stuff,mostly close neighbors, that are pretty sure the items arent infected...but you never know ....
Are the booty call websites still doing business? Asking for a friend. I’d have to think social distancing goes out the window there.
The worst I've seen was in Meijer...
A woman standing behind a young man trying to decide on his choice of yogurt. After waiting several seconds, she leaned in and reached for her selection. She smiled and said "excuse me" as she grabbed her yogurt.
I said "C'mon really?" and she replied: ""I said Excuse Me!?". I then said "Social Distancing?". And she said "Oh yeah, I forgot.".
Sometimes people have a lapse and just need a gentle reminder.
PS - My wife waits in the car now when we go to the grocery store.
There was an older lady at Meijer that kinda bothered me. She was very abrasively requesting that the people in line stay six feet away from her. Her cart had maybe three or four items in it, so this wasn’t a necessary trip to the store. She had no gloves on. She had no mask on. My issue is mostly that she was acting like everyone should be catering to her when she didn’t appear to be taking any other precautions and wasn’t on what appeared to be a needed trip.
I'm pretty sure this was my Mother. She means well. She just follows every rule the government puts a number on to the letter, but if it's vague or makes sense but isn't required she doesn't pay the slightest attention.
Hilarious listening to her complain about people not social distancing when she is just shopping because she is bored and wanted to bake a cake.
You’re probably right!
Florida governor declaring going to church an essential service