Walking along city sidewalks, I often come to grates, or metal utility access doors. I usually detour around them. Maybe I'm overly cautious – I don't see anyone else doing this. What do you guys do?
Serious about crackers
Posts: 8936 | Location: San Diego | Registered: July 26, 2014
My dad fell down one as a kid. The metal basement access doors were closed but when he stepped onto them the doors gave way and caved in. I've seen it happen to another person as well. Because of that I try to avoid them if possible, but I don't obsess about it. I will stop and walk around a set of closed doors that visibly look old and rickety. IN NYC you come across more than a few of those. As for subway grates and things like that, I walk over them no issues.
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“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve." - Lao Tzu
Posts: 4635 | Location: New Jersey | Registered: June 21, 2007
I only become aware of them (at all) when carrying something in my hand, keys, phone, etc. as I'm walking by. I know that, odds are, I'll lose something down there that I value one day when I'm not paying enough attention.
Posts: 7252 | Location: Dallas | Registered: August 04, 2011
Walking along city sidewalks, I often come to grates, or metal utility access doors. I usually detour around them. Maybe I'm overly cautious – I don't see anyone else doing this. What do you guys do?
I am too busy texting on my phone when walking to notice those things. LOL
Do you walk under ladders, and stay home on Friday the 13th?
Posts: 17226 | Location: Stuck at home | Registered: January 02, 2015
No particular effort to avoid them, unless it is raining, snowy or icy, then they can be a slip hazard. What are really bad are storm drain grates with parallel bars in the street next to the sidewalk. When the grates run parallel to the street, they will fold a bicycle wheel in half and send you flying if you drop it in one. This happened to me once. But I gave up bicycling shortly after getting my driver's license anyway.
Posts: 27930 | Location: Johnson City, TN | Registered: April 28, 2012
I understand WHY people avoid them, but I'd wager they may be safer than some areas of the sidewalk!
As I explained to my son, that hole doesn't just go straight down, it likely runs the length of the sidewalk in form of a drain. So there is a void underneath you the whole time. You just don't care cause you can't see it.
11 years to retirement! Just waiting!
Posts: 6315 | Location: Maryland | Registered: August 10, 2009
Originally posted by OttoSig: I understand WHY people avoid them, but I'd wager they may be safer than some areas of the sidewalk!
As I explained to my son, that hole doesn't just go straight down, it likely runs the length of the sidewalk in form of a drain. So there is a void underneath you the whole time. You just don't care cause you can't see it.
You're correct about that!
"A New York woman suffered serious injuries when the sidewalk collapsed beneath her feet on Saturday. …"
I generally avoid them. Too many years of walking in dressy shoes (ie., shoes with smooth leather soles) in too many cities in too many kinds of bad weather. Then again I've inadvertently gone skiing down a smooth, dry sidewalk in SF wearing shoes like that, too.
Posts: 27291 | Location: Deep in the heart of the brush country, and closing on that #&*%!?! roadrunner. Really. | Registered: February 05, 2008
My mom, as a speech pathologist, was treating a patient out of her office when I was young, that suffered a brain injury resulting from a fall thru a rotted out steel grate. The person needed to re-learn how to talk.
So some 50 or so years later, I think of that (almost always) whenever I approach a steel grate, and will avoid it.
She also was working with someone who accidentally banged her head into the corner of a steel cabinet door when she stood up and lost her ability speak clearly, so I have a long-term habit of closing cabinet doors, especially if someone is crouched below them. __________
__________ "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal labotomy."
Posts: 3475 | Location: Lehigh Valley, PA | Registered: March 27, 2007
I could deal with Bigfoot, the Boogeyman, C.H.U.D., and Pennywise who all live below those grates. What I couldn't take as a kid and why I still avoid walking on grates ... heights.
They don't think it be like it is, but it do.
Posts: 4797 | Location: SC | Registered: January 27, 2001
My mom, as a speech pathologist, was treating a patient out of her office when I was young, that suffered a brain injury resulting from a fall thru a rotted out steel grate. The person needed to re-learn how to talk.
So some 50 or so years later, I think of that (almost always) whenever I approach a steel grate, and will avoid it.
She also was working with someone who accidentally banged her head into the corner of a steel cabinet door when she stood up and lost her ability speak clearly, so I have a long-term habit of closing cabinet doors, especially if someone is crouched below them. __________
If you work in orthopedics or the ER you learn the world is not a very safe place. If you think too much about these things you develop agoraphobia. LOL
Posts: 17226 | Location: Stuck at home | Registered: January 02, 2015
