Following the Herd

I’ve long been a fan of Mark Earls, and his writing on ‘herd theory’, which suggests that we tend to follow what other people do, rather than following the logical, rational decisions we often claim after the fact.

And I’m reminded of that theory every day on my commute to London. First comes the ‘Finsbury Park Standing Experiment’, whereby the first person to stand up in an attempt to gain a couple of vital minutes between leaving the train and joining the queue for the London Underground suddenly inspires everyone to fill the aisle of the carriage for the last 10-15 minutes of the journey. Despite the logical problem that after the first handful of ‘standers’, the rest of the queue fail to gain much time, if any. And people like me stay seated and working and then tend to be sat near the door anyway.

And if I don’t head underground, I then get to watch the ‘traffic light lemmings’. With any large group waiting to cross a road in the morning, it takes just one or two people to begin to cross, and the herd will follow, regardless of whether the lights are red, green, or there is a large lorry hurtling towards them with the lights on and horn blaring.

Meanwhile I undergo a strange transformation:

While I cycle to the station, I find myself becoming irritated by cars and pedestrians..

While I’m on the train, I miss not travelling by car/motorcycle – especially when the wifi fails.

When I’m walking to work, it’s cars and cyclists that cause problems.

Who I perceive to be causing problems and irritation is entirely dependant on which form of transport I’m using at the time, even in the space of the same journey. Am I herding myself into the mass view of that form of transit, or just setting myself apart from the stereotype of each mass transport group?