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The story
On the afternoon of the 20th, an accident occurred in which escalator users at the east exit of JR Nagano Station fell one after another, leaving two people—including a 4-year-old boy—with minor injuries. SBC Shinetsu Broadcasting reported the news at 3:44 p.m. that day. Thread posters were split on the cause: was it the practice of “leaving one side open for walkers,” or a jam caused by the person at the front stumbling near the bottom of the escalator? There was also a side debate over terminology—whether to call the phenomenon a “shogi-piece pile-up” (things toppling forward, like standing shogi tiles) or a “domino effect” (toppling backward).
9/20 (Sun) 15:44 JST
SBC Shinetsu Broadcasting
On the 20th, an accident occurred on an escalator at the east exit of JR Nagano Station in Nagano City in which several people fell, leaving two people, including a boy, with minor injuries.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Seriously, people need to stop doing that.
That's got nothing to do with it.
It's the opposite.
If one side is left open, there's room to escape.
If it's not left open, you literally get a domino effect dragging down everyone behind.
A crowded escalator is exactly when you should leave one side open.
https://youtube.com/shorts/aRn8A3gWuo0
Doesn't make sense to me.
Didn't they fall right at the exit?
Sounds like the next person got tripped up by them and fell too, and it snowballed into a domino effect.
Can you not grasp the concept of a jam-up…?
Of course they'd fall—if someone trips right at the exit and blocks it, there's nowhere for the people behind to go.
They were probably looking at their phone—hard to dodge that.
Domino's Pizza would probably complain too if you called it a 'domino effect.'
This is exactly why you should always leave one side open.
If one side's open, even if the person in front falls, you can dodge sideways.
Unless it's extremely crowded, wouldn't spreading out across both sides increase the average gap between people and make a pile-up less likely?
What if the guy behind was an 80-year-old man?
That's probably it.
To minimize the damage, you need the courage to just step over the first person who fell.
Exactly this.
I genuinely don't get how people mix it up.
♪The shore is imagination
♪Escalation
♪WOW WOW WOW
♪Communication with you
♪Escalation
(riffing on song lyrics that pun 'escalation' with 'escalator')That Resident Evil QTE is unforgivable. (バイオ/'Bio' = the Japanese name for the Resident Evil games)
What even is a QTE?
But shogi pieces weren't originally meant to be toppled for fun, right?
Dominoes are made to be toppled from the start.
People aren't meant to be toppled for fun either, but if you're going to topple them anyway, maybe 'shogi-daoshi' is the more accurate term.
Do you not know how dominoes are played?
Hope this incident leads to an actual ban on walking on them.
Then you just stand there forever.
Everyone behind you is gonna pile on top of you lol
No matter what, you have to take that last step to actually get off, right?
So walking partway doesn't really change anything—walking has nothing to do with this accident.
The person who fell was just slow.
They should pass a law letting you kick people who slowly shuffle down stairs while staring at their phones too.
Well, I guess that's fair enough.
Go ahead and give 'em a good one.
Background and Key Points of Discussion
At Japanese train stations, the practice of “leaving one side open” while riding escalators has become an entrenched, de facto custom over many years. However, following a string of falling accidents linked to walking on escalators across the country, railway companies and escalator manufacturers have recently stepped up calls for passengers to “stand still on both sides instead of walking.” The SBC Shinetsu Broadcasting article on this incident does not specify the direct cause of the fall, so it remains unclear whether the “leave one side open” custom itself was to blame, or whether it was simply a “jam” caused by someone stumbling near the exit. Thread posters were similarly split between these two views, and some also pointed out that, strictly speaking, a “shogi-piece pile-up” should refer to things toppling forward, while a “domino effect” refers to toppling backward. Further details on the actual cause and circumstances of the accident will have to wait for statements from police and the railway company.
*This article is compiled as excerpts and a summary from the 5channel (News Speed+) thread “[Nagano] ‘Escalator Turns Into a Domino Effect’ — 11 Fall on JR Nagano Station Escalator, 2 Injured Including a 4-Year-Old Boy.”
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