We need to talk about escalators

They're scary and dangerous, and I can't be the only one who thinks so

This one isn’t deep, but lots of them are. Photo by Teemu Laukkarinen on Unsplash.

I was at the top of an escalator last year when I was thrown forward. Someone pressed the ‘emergency stop’ button and the machinery stopped very suddenly, jolting me. Thankfully, I was going up the escalator - but had I been going down, I could have tumbled head first 20 metres.

Now, I’m the first to admit I’m a scaredy-cat. I have two anxiety disorders, including generalised anxiety disorder, which means I am scared of everything. As well as escalators, my fears include anything which could make me feel claustrophobic - lifts, planes, underground trains, overground trains where you can’t open the window, and even windowless rooms with the door shut.

Before I was attacked while pregnant (the 20-year anniversary of that unhappy event fell on the 1st of this month), I happily managed to navigate all of the above without a glimmer of fear. But when your 6’2”, 35-year-old boyfriend makes your ear pour with blood and suffocates you, despite you being pregnant with his baby aged 24 and 5’2”, at a time when he should be protecting you, it does something very bad to your brain. You start to think everything is dangerous and see everything as a threat.

I even used to fear overground trains, thinking the driver would fall asleep with his weight pressed against the power lever and we would smash into a wall. I feared stations with signs hanging overhead, thinking they would crash down into me. And I feared scaffolding, and dogs which looked dangerous, and strong men who I thought could kill me with their bare hands.

Now, I know rationally that most things in everyday life are very low risk. Planes are the safest form of transport - you have just a 1 in 11 million chance of dying due to flying in one. Similarly, there have literally only been five fatal Tube accidents due to train operation, the last one being in 1975.

However, up to 40% of people are scared of planes, while virtually no one is scared of escalators except me.

But maybe they should be…

The case against escalators

I never said they didn’t look amazing. Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash.