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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|Quick! Let's run away as fast as we can [[Lampshade Hanging|in a straight line]]!|Gumball|[[The Amazing World of Gumball]]}}
Logically the fastest way to avoid something that's coming straight at you is to move a few steps aside of its path and let it pass by, but in fiction nobody ever seems to do this. At all.
So like a flightless version of [[Acrophobic Bird]], characters being chased by a car, falling rocks, or anything else that travels in one direction will inevitably run straight ahead and try to outrun the threat. They appear to only be able to think in one
This looks very dramatic on camera, but [[Fridge Logic]] kicks in a little while later and you ask "Well why didn't she enter one of the buildings instead of letting the car chase her down the freeway?" or what have you.
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{{examples}}
== Anime
* In ''[[Girls und Panzer]] der Film'' Team Rabbit momentarily does this when trying to not get hit by a [[Ferris Wheel of Doom]], until one of the pointed out they could just move out of its path.
* During Asuna's [[Training
* In the ''[[Gantz]]'' manga and anime, after being caught on the train tracks, Kurono and Katou decide to try and outrun the train to get beyond where the front car will stop. Even if {{spoiler|the train hadn't turned out to be a non-stop express,}} it's unlikely they would have been able to run far enough in time, and the fact that they break off an attempt to climb onto the platform in favor of running seems pretty counter intuitive. They probably would have made it up with help from the bystanders. Then again, the theme of this scene seems to be [[Humans Are
** Which totally fails to explain why one of them couldn't lift the other out, then get pulled up himself. Basically this was a case of [[Plot Induced Stupidity]], because the story couldn't happen without them dead.
* In the second ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'' movie, Sakura is on a roller coaster track with the coaster coming right at her. She first tries running straight along the track rather than taking one step sideways onto the emergency walkway. Then, when it's about to hit her, she ''stops time'', then [[Too Dumb to Live|stays right where she is, rather than getting out of the way before the spell wears off]].
* In episode 17 of ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'', the chosen first dodge the [[World Gone Mad|cruise liner in the middle of the desert]] by, sensibly, running to the side. When it it actually start chasing them, though, the trope promptly kicks in full force. Late, in Episode 49, it shows up again as they are fleeing a balled-up Waru Monzaemon.
* In ''[[Tokyo Magnitude 8.0]]'', {{spoiler|the Tokyo Tower falls, but the characters run parallel to the direction of the falling tower rather than running off to the side.}}
* In ''[[Angel Beats!]]'', one of the traps in the hallways leading to [[Elaborate Underground Base|Guild]] is a rolling boulder. Apparently, this is massively averted, as not only the resident ninja Shiina managed to find a small nook to hide from the boulder (and pull away most of the members, Hinata tackles Otonashi to the corner of the hallway, thereby evading the boulder (remember, a boulder is spherical, the hallway is rectangular, so the edges on the bottom won't be swept by the boulder). Indeed, the only casualty is the guy who kept running.
* Averted in episode 8 of ''[[The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye|The Third the Girl With The Blue Eye]]''. Honoka and her tank, Bogie, find themselves on the wrong end of a stampeding herd of sand dragons. Bogie's response, rather than drive ''away'' from the dragons, is to drive off to the side and get out of their path. They aren't ''quite'' fast enough to get out without damage, but do survive nonetheless.
== Comic Books ==
* The titular hero of the comic book ''[[Nightman]]'' also realizes there is space when a circle (a giant ball) rolls down a square hall. He lays down and rolls to the left, where the floor meets the wall.
== Film ==
* In ''[[Star Wars]] [[Attack of the Clones|Episode II]]'', Count Dooku uses the Force to push over a giant pillar, directly in the path of a helpless Anakin and Obi-Wan. Yoda just uses the Force to push the pillar off to the side and set it down gently on the floor, right? Nope, he pushes directly against the pillar's momentum, brings it to a stop directly above them, and ''keeps it floating in the air for a moment''. This visibly exhausts him, and it stalls him for long enough for Dooku to escape.
** Or he could have just pulled Anakin and Obi-Wan out from under it before it hit.
** Moving injured people can be risky if you don't know what you're doing. What Yoda decided to do was a bonehead move either way, though.
* The first ''[[Indiana Jones]]'' film, ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'': Close investigation of the scene where Indy is being chased by the boulder will reveal it is on rails (big viney ones) and he could have run towards it, past said rails, when it first appeared, then safely followed its path out of the
* In the film ''[[Alien (franchise)|Aliens]]'', everyone runs forward when the [[Drop Ship]] crashes, instead of moving sideways out of the path of the oncoming debris.
* ''[[Forrest Gump]]'': "Run, Forrest, run!" Try "Dodge, Forrest, dodge!" Though he does take off across a field and hop a fence at least once.
* Directly parodied at the start of [["Weird Al" Yankovic]]'s ''[[UHF (film)|UHF]]'': The boulder chases the Weird Al version of Indiana Jones around various random locations until he realizes he can just run to the side... ''and the boulder turns to follow him''.
* In the bad TV movie ''[[10.5]]'', a bicyclist tries to outrace the Space Needle as it breaks from its base and comes crashing to the ground... when he could have easily biked all of six feet to either side of or behind the base, and avoided the whole problem.
* Parodied in ''[[Wrongfully Accused]]'', when Harisson flees a runaway train by running into the
* Played with in ''[[Mars Attacks
* ''[[Monsters vs. Aliens]]''. Susan ran forward, and way from the meteor, instead of, you know, going left or right. Actually, she would've been fine where she was at originally, it only hit her because she ran straight into its path.
* Justified in ''[[Back to The Future]] II'': when Biff tries to run down Marty, they're inside a tunnel and Biff has the speed advantage (and can swerve his car if Marty attempts to dodge.)
** And ultimately subverted, as Marty ''does'' eventually dodge in a second
*** And in the third film, Marty has to think ''four''-dimensionally. He's in the DeLorean being pushed along an incomplete train track, but he travels forward in time, to a point where the track is complete.
* The remake of ''[[Nightmare On Elm Street]]'' has the human-Krueger do this for a while as angry parents pursue him through an abandoned factory complex.
* The [[Rule of Funny]] gives an interesting twist to this one in ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]'': A way too amorous toon is running full bore towards Eddie Valiant. Instead of running away or stepping to the side, he takes the white line on the road that she's running on and directs it into the wall. Naturally, a wall pizza ensues.
{{quote|
* ''[[Buckaroo Banzai]]''. While being pursued by a Red Lectroid driving a truck, Buckaroo runs straight ahead down the road, where he would have inevitably been run down if a Blue Blaze Irregular helicopter hadn't arrived to rescue him.
* Countess Lisl from ''[[For Your Eyes Only (film)|For Your Eyes Only]]'' is killed when she tries to run away from a car in a straight line.
* Parodied in ''[[Austin Powers|Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery]]''. As the protagonists escape on a very slow Road Roller, a lone security guard screams in terror as the roller approaches and proceeds to scream "STOOOOOP!!" multiple times as it approaches, making no attempt to move to the left or right until finally being run over.
* [[Played With]] in ''[[Prometheus]]''. {{spoiler|Shaw and Vickers}} are running away from the collapsing Space Jockey ship, which hits the ground sideways and begins rolling towards them. {{spoiler|Shaw}} falls down and realizes she can just roll sideways to get out of its path, while {{spoiler|Vickers isn't so lucky, as she continues running in a straight line and gets crushed as a result}}.
== Literature ==
* Naturally, the narrator of ''[[Flatland]]'' visits Lineland, a world where this is literally true. The inhabitants of Lineland can't pass each other, and each being only ever sees two things: his two immediate neighbors' eyes/asses. Reproduction is pulled off by having sex partners ''sing'' to each other over long distances, which is handy, since at least one of a Linelaner's neighbors will always be a parent or sibling.
* Deconstructed/Parodied/somethinged in [[Dr. Seuss]]' "The Zax", a short tale in his book ''The Sneetches and Other Stories.
* Averted in [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[American Gods]]'', where the Technical Boy is able to run down Bilquis with his limo because she was trapped on a road with a sheer, muddy climb up on one side and a sheer drop off a cliff on the other. She tried to get out of the way, but the surroundings themselves had her trapped.
== Live Action TV ==
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== Tabletop Games ==
* This is/was prevalent sometimes in ''[[Dungeons
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==
* Parodied in
{{quote|'''Minnesota Jones''': "Well, you took all the drama out of that one."}}
*
* ''[[Bob and George]]'' [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/001126c
== Western Animation ==
* [[Disney]] and [[Looney Tunes]] shorts are not only blatant offenders, but the prime subverters. You know the shorts where the big, hulking bad guy is running full bore towards an oblivious (or waiting) good guy, and the good guy just steps aside, and it takes the bad guy running a good long while to notice? This is often accompanied by a freight train [[Stock Sound Effects|sound effect]], complete with Doppler effect when the bad guy whizzes past. On the other hand, a character running from a falling tree will only run in the same direction the tree is falling, and thus get hit. Really, it all depends on what the writer thought would be [[Rule of Funny|funnier]].
** Of course, due to [[Offscreen Teleportation]], moving a few feet to one
*** "TTTTIIIIIMMMMM--" CRAASH!!! "--ber."
** [[Bugs Bunny/Characters|Bugs Bunny]] took advantage of this, as real bullfighters do, in "Bully for Bugs".
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== Real Life ==
* In real life, human beings have a natural instinct to run directly away from a threat during times of panic. Panicked crowds behave the same way, a fact that has been exploited for centuries by conquering hordes.
* A variation for [[Truth in Television|real life]], if you're ever caught in an [https://web.archive.org/web/20131117012743/http://www.wikihow.com/Escape-if-Your-Car-Is-Stalled-on-the-Tracks-of-an-Approaching-Train emergency scenario wherein your car is in the path of an oncoming train], the safest direction to run ''isn't'' away or to the side, but rather, ''toward'' the direction the train is coming from, to minimize the chance of getting hit by the doomed car's shrapnel. Also, don't go running back to the car for your boyfriend's class ring.
** [[Captain Obvious|After moving to the side.]]
* If your car ever stalls on train tracks, movie style, the starter engine will easily move your car tens of feet forward. Just jam your car to gear one and release the clutch, then turn the key as you were starting the car. For automatics, switch to forced gear one and apply as aforementioned.
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* When the Gimli Glider was making its emergency landing at the decommissioned runway in Gimli, Manitoba, the pilots were horrified to see two kids riding bikes on the runway, who, when they saw the plane, turned and tried to outrun a 767 coming in at 200+ knots. Fortunately they had enough of a head start, and the 767's collapsed front gear slowed the plane fast enough, that they actually made it. This was dramatically/[[Narm|hilariously]] depicted in the TV movie; the kid in question is clearly so terrified that he can't take the obvious step, but he eventually figures it out just in time and the plane whizzes by him.
* Emus take this fallacy one step further: when approached by a car, they have a nasty habit of [[Too Dumb to Live|dashing in front of it for a few meters before crossing to the other side of the road]]. The roads in the Outback are littered with emu corpses, for good reason.
** Sheep are apparently known for doing this too... but if you are running from something chasing you and you turn, you are at a disadvantage because the pursuer can cut the corner and catch up to you. They don't know that you are (probably) not actually chasing them and they would be perfectly safe going off in either direction, so it does make some sense if you look at from their point of view.
*** This is where the sheep game comes from; the farmer(mouse) should be providing the sheep food and shelter, but sheep are extremely nervous and run away.
** Opossums do an even dumber variant. You know the term playing Possum? Well, trying to do that against a car makes them not just play dead.
*** Birds are even worse. They'll descend on roadkill and then try to challenge oncoming cars for it.
** There is, in fact, a perfectly good evolutionary reason for this behavior in prey animals. Every time you turn off a straight path a predator following you can take a shorter path a catch you more quickly. Anything scary (like a car) triggers the same response, unfortunately cars drivers are pretty much the opposite of predators.
** However, rabbits and hares are more [[Genre Savvy]]: they try to outrun a predator in a fairly straight line, but when it has closed in too much, make an instant turn of ninety degrees or more. Most predators will overshoot the turn, increasing the distance again.
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* Averted by default and taken advantage of in police chases - officers are taught that when the car in front of them goes around a turn they'll slow down, and this can be good time to ram the car. Many police cars have reinforced bumpers for this purpose.
* Bullfighting is humans taking advantage of this trope vs. bulls. See Western Animation above for a fictional example.
** A very specific variant is that, when being chased by an angry rhinoceros of any species, the best situation is not to try and ''outrun'' an animal with that kind of momentum, but to stand one's ground and quickly jump to the side at just the right moment. Of course, you still have a somewhat slim chance of survival any time an animal the size of a truck is angry at you- this is just slightly better. Though if your timing and reflexes are particularly bad, you may be better off trying to run.
* There are a lot of videos of cows, moose and camels getting run over by trains as they try and outrun the bloody thing on the track.
* Another animal aversion is the armadillo, for their reaction is to jump straight up in the air, which works pretty good against a lunging threat such as a snake or such. Unfortunately, they use this strategy around cars too, they usually end up around bumper or grill level.
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[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
[[Category:Chase Scene]]
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