

When a fire alarm rings, people do not act. They stand around. - darkchyld
http://interfsce.com/chronicles/2013/7/17/the-fear-of-change

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Zuider
This is well known. People tend to freeze when confronted with a novel
situation. That is why there are fire drills, and why soldiers are drilled
until obeying orders is reflexive.

When people freeze like this, they are not just idly goofing about, but are in
a state of high tension and indecision, looking to see what everybody else is
doing, or for someone who appears to know what must be done to take the
initiative.

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Casseres
I imagine something like this is going through the heads of many people:

 _Oh, an alarm is going off. Is this a drill? Must be, I don 't see anyone
running or anything on fire. No one is telling me that I have to leave, so
I'll just stay right here and carry on with my business. I don't really want
to go outside only to wait 15 minutes to half an hour until they tell me the
alarm was an accident._

Solution: Have someone go to the fire panel, see where the alarm was set off,
go to the place where the alarm was set off, verify there is an actual
emergency, make a live announcement on the PA system telling people to exit
the building.

At the minimum, telling people to exit the building, even if it's an automatic
recording that plays when the alarm was set off, is the best way to get people
to comply. Telling people to exit is much more powerful than a noise and
having people decide for themselves whether or not to exit.

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hcarvalhoalves
I don't think it's "fear of change", but rather that people in the civilized
world, who live in urban areas, are rarely faced with dangerous situations and
don't have developed a judgement of when a situation is dangerous. They are
not in fear when a fire breaks, they are passive. Fear would make them think
quick on their feet.

~~~
darkchyld
Well I think mainly it's about how once we get into routine subconsciously
it's really hard to change especially so when the situation is more dynamic
hence intrinsically it's a fear for change. They can tell that the situation
is perilous but they way they react is to stick to their prior routine.

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nickzoic
This is odd, because every time I've been in a building when a fire alarm went
off, people by and large got up and got out. Okay, so they generally brought
their coffee with them, and sometimes their laptops. Maybe it was because
there _were_ unannounced fire drills and occasional false alarms, so it wasn't
really a novel situation.

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korussian
"Forensic reconstruction after a famous restaurant fire in the Beverly Hills
Supper Club in Kentucky confirmed that many of the victims sought to pay
before leaving, and so died in a queue."

This is surprising altruism.

~~~
darkchyld
"We almost always try to exit a room through the same door we entered."

That was foreshadowed by this and I don't think it's so much altruism as it is
routine.

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rugoso
maybe instead of just a loud sound, they should put a loud voice telling them
the situation and what to do ... I guess some alarms do that

