Fps People Walking Walk Phone Average Talking Pedestrian

Have you become angry when the person in front of you is walking too slowly? Have you ever thought, "Get off your phone and walk faster!"? Congratulations! You may have PAS - Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome.

What is Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome? A "pedestrian" is someone who is walking; "aggressiveness" is when you are very forceful in a mean or unkind way; and a "syndrome" is a type of mental disease.

PAS, also called sidewalk "rage" (anger), is when people get really mad at other people because of the way they are walking down the street, similar to "road rage" for those in cars.

The City of New York actually measured how fast different types of people walked down the streets of Manhattan, the main business district of the city, and found the following average walking speeds, from fastest to slowest:

Headphone listeners - 4.64 feet per second (fps)

Men - 4.42 fps

People going to work - 4.41 fps

People with bags - 4.27 fps

Average person - 4.27 fps

Cell phone users - 4.20 fps

Smokers - 4.17

Women - 4.10 fps

Tourists - 3.79 fps

"Large" people (tall; fat) - 3.74 fps

Over 65 years old - 3.63 fps

The city found that people tend to walk more slowly than average when smoking (2.3% slower) and talking on a cell phone (1.6% slower), while people with headphones (for example, listening to music) walk 9% faster than average. Tourists - no surprise - walk 11% slower.