Petition to end the shouting of ROBOT

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

But it's often the case that a single "Robot!" effectively gets people to look up, notice you, and clear out of the way. I observed this several times at DC, and didn't see anyone gravely harmed or offput by the lack of manners. So I have a hard time seeing the need to not do it.

A single "Robot!" shouted by the person pushing the cart is coming from the wrong place. In order to warn the ones in front of the cart it has to be very loud. It gets the attention of a lot of people. The majority of those people are not in the way. Such an action adds a lot more noise than it does safety.

The person doing the warning should be in front of the robot, not behind it. With that arrangement, the volume required to alert the people who need to be alerted should not need to rise to the level of a shout. Anyone in the way who doesn't react to a loudly spoken "excuse us, robot coming through, please watch out" is going to be close enough for the vanguard to touch the person on the shoulder or arm and get their attention without shouting.