Business people, workers should be provided with dedicated fast lanes on city pavements (sidewalks)

I would like to thank bluesteel for accepting this debate and I would like to respond to his arguments as follows: 1 - Designation First of all, I did state both business people and workers in the debate title but I concede that pedestrian fast lanes should not be exclusively for their use. For example, if a tourist, housewife, student or parasitic aristocrat was able to keep up with the flow of pedestrians in the fast lane then nobody should object. Similarly, just because someone is a businessperson or a worker should not automatically entitle them to use the fast lane. For example, an investment banker may also be a chronic alcoholic and may have consumed an entire bottle of vodka on his train into town from the suburbs – he may be making his way from the railway station to his bank in a drunken stupor, staggering erratically down the pavement, occasionally stopping to vomit in shop doorways and urinate in bus shelters, and generally impeding the progress of other commuters. By the same token, a secretary may supplement her salary by touting for business on her way to work, perhaps giving ad-hoc punters hand-jobs for cash in secluded alleyways or in the stairwells of car parks, and in the process of looking for more tricks to turn, seriously obstruct the fast lane. Otherwise, a commuter may work as a fitness trainer in a city gym but might also be morbidly obese and not be capable of keeping pace with the pedestrians in the fast lane. However, all these scenarios are a little unlikely, and it does tend to be people such as businessmen and workers that generally walk the fastest. 2, 3 - Enforcement and Cost This scheme will be self-enforcing. If a tardy shopper, tourist etc. strays into the path of a businessperson trying to make decent headway to the office, the businessperson (and, if necessary, other legitimate fast-lane users) would simply push or throw, or use other physical means, to propel the offending member of the public back into the slow lane where they belong. This shouldn't pose a problem from a legal point of view, by the way. My opponent mentioned jaywalkers and if a jaywalker suddenly walked out in front of your car you wouldn't be prosecuted for running him over (as you would if you knocked him down on a pedestrian crossing when the signal was "walk") because the jaywalker shouldn't have stepped out in front of your car in the first place. Similarly, if you give a man a good kicking in the street – just for a bit of a laugh - you would likely be arrested and charged with assault, but you wouldn't if the aforementioned kicking took place in your own home after the ‘victim' had broken in with the intention to commit an act of theft or violence. The same principle applies to people who are not entitled to walk in the fast lanes – if they get unceremoniously bundled to the ground and suffer cuts bruises as a result, they only have themselves to blame. And ignorance of the law is no defence. For example, if a middle-aged Spanish man visited the United States and had sex with a thirteen year-old girl and was arrested and charged with statutory rape, he would not be acquitted on the basis that the age of consent in his native Spain is thirteen and he didn't realise that it was any different in America. In terms of cost, the real beauty of this scheme, of course, is that it is cheap – just a one-off expense for some white paint and some workmen to apply it to the pavements. 4 - Practical Objection It is true that some pavements are narrow – too narrow to accommodate four pedestrian lanes – and that the scheme cannot, therefore, be adopted everywhere. Similarly, not all cities are busy enough to warrant such a scheme. Others, such as Dallas in Texas, don't even have sidewalks (pavements) outside the very centre of the city! Nevertheless, where it is possible to introduce fast lanes, they will be of real benefit to delayed and harassed commuters. My opponent mentioned that most people tend to walk on the right, by the way. That may be so in America but in Britain people walk (and drive) on the left. The reason for this is historical. In ancient times gentlemen carried swords and since most people are right-handed, the right arm was usually the sword arm. As a consequence, a gentleman walked or rode down the street on the left hand-side of the road so that if he spotted a fellow he didn't much care for approaching from the opposite direction, he could withdraw his sword from its scabbard and slash the foe as he passed. 5 - Slow down. Oh, would that it were possible to slow down, would that it were! Unfortunately, in order to fund the free education of students, the generous government benefits given to all mothers, the welfare payments doled out to the unemployed, the free healthcare made available to tramps, prostitutes, the elderly, Hare Krishna nutjobs, telecom engineers, the morbidly obese, the mentally retarded and even parasitic aristocrats - some people have to go out and work to pay the taxes that pay for all these government handouts. Now, given that in Central London almost half of men work over 48 hours per week, time with the family is very limited. http://www.lhc.org.uk... Do these men want to spend more time than necessary on top of these long working hours travelling to and from their workplaces? Or would they rather spend more precious time with their wives and children? Of course, workers would rather be with their families than in human traffic jams and they should be helped to do so - business people and workers – the people that pay the taxes - should be provided with dedicated fast lanes on city pavements (sidewalks) Thank you.