Commuting in Washington State

From Kurt O'Brien - Poulsbo WA

I commute to my job at the University of Washington in Seattle by ferry, as I live on the other side of Puget Sound on the Kitsap Peninsula.  When the ferry pulls in to the pier, commuters begin to queue up and prepare to off load.  People are generally very polite, and form an orderly line as they wait for the brow to be lowered so they can disembark.  One evening, a young man went to the front of the line and pushed his way into the queue.  A passenger became angry and began yelling at the young man, telling him that he needed to move to the back of the line.  The young man refused.  Sensing that tensions were rising, a third man attempted to intervene and restore some order.  He calmly asked the young man to move to the back of the line, explaining the normal order of things and that it wasn't worth making a scene.  Still, the young man refused.  At this point the second man became irate, yelling even louder at the young man, telling him that if he wanted a fight he'd get one.  As the two of them moved off to the side, making ready to come to blows, the third man rushed forward, inserting himself between the two would-be combatants, telling each of them to calm down.  At this point, a few other passengers also came forward, prepared to help prevent the situation from escalating further.  These actions proved successful, as the two men separated.  The efforts of the third man to invoke the Third Side (role of Peacekeeper) prevented a potentially dangerous situation from erupting into a physical altercation.

Comments

[Josh]

Very interesting story. Not uncommon from my experience -- when people engage like this with a crowd around I have seen...more often than not...that some people intervene to settle things backdown. As you know with the Third Side, one important question is why do those people step forward and others remain on the sidelines. Lots of ideas around this but I am curious what other people's thoughts are?