Blind Alley

So, you're running down the street or down the hall, with the pursuer(s) hot on your heels. How to get out of this sticky situation?

Why, run into an alley or street to the side, of course!

Rest assured that your pursuer(s) will blindly dash past you - apparently their peripheral vision is conveniently deactivated as they approach your hideout. This will happen even if they should be capable of seeing you entering the hideout.

See also Behind the Black.

Not to be confused with characters being pursued down an actual "blind alley" only to find themselves up against a Chain Link Fence or other dead-end.

Anime and Manga

 * Venus Wars has Hiro Seno escaping from police after his bike is shot at, explodes but he dives into a doorway to a side alley. The police proceed forward to the explosion believing he has died in the fire.

Film

 * Averted in Inception. Cobb runs down an alley to try and ditch several agents that are chasing him. They notice him stuck in between the two buildings at the other end of the narrowing alley and he barely escapes them.
 * Occurred in the mock buster Mega Piranha.
 * Seen in one of the short films made for 28 Weeks Later. A man is pressed up against a wall as the Rage virus infected run past the alley—presumably their blinding anger prevents them from doing common sense things like looking around for someone who's gone out of sight.
 * Escape from Sobibor: One of the guards goes into a senior officers office

Literature

 * In the Blade of the Guillotine, it's used to escape an angry royalist blacksmith.

Live Action TV

 * Alarm Fur Cobra 11
 * Happens in an episode of Friends, "The One in Barbados Part 2". Ross and Charlie enter a room down the corridor while their pursuers continue down the hall.
 * Alleys are used a lot in Angel. The title sequence ends in one,

Web Original

 * In the second episode of There She Is the cat is trying to deliver the cake to his bunny girlfriend and hides in an alley from the rhino, dog and other animals chasing him.

Western Animation

 * All the time in Tom and Jerry.