I had a similar epiphany on the London Underground
As a spotty sixteen-year old on a Saturday trip with my schoolmates to The Smoke in the 1980s, the day held the prospect of Soho strip clubs and underage drinking of overpriced lager, but the main memory I still have of the day is the knobend who decided it was a good idea to take his wife in her wheelchair, and their young child, down the escalator at Tottenham Court Road.

Shortly after alighting on the straight & level section at the top without incident, the guy found himself standing a couple of steps above his wife, attempting to push down and pull back on the wheelchair handles to keep it straight and level, balanced on its back wheels while the front projected into space.

Unfortunately, his downward pressure - and the fact that the wheels in contact with the step didn't have their brakes on - conspired to cause the wheelchair to fall backwards and begin to bounce/roll down the steps. To give the bloke his due, he didn't let go of the handles even when lying face down on the stairs at full stretch, having been dragged to that position by the weight of the wheelchair.

The chair only stopped rolling because of an obstruction behind it that wedged into the stairs - their child.

One of my friends had the presence of mind - and a sense of charity and selflessness that comes from not being a Londoner - to hit the emergency stop button and help extricate the family from their predicament. The rest of our group, meanwhile, were booking our places in Hull by barely being able to suppress our guffaws.

(Fortunately, no one was hurt)
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Sat 24 Jul 2010, 19:42, Reply)