why do we often see shoes lying on the side of the road.?

Question

Sometimes in pairs. Sometimes just one. I know the common answer would be because of an accident, but I think there is another answer, as it happens all to frequently. Surely someone out there knows what I am talking about.

Answer 1

Well, we can nix the sprout-from-seeds hypothesis right off the bat. You're undoubtedly thinking of shoe TREES. (Haw!)

Many great and not-so-great minds have wrestled with this phenomenon without arriving at any firm conclusions. I note, for instance, that my fellow investigator David Feldman devotes seven pages to the topic in his book When Do Fish Sleep, in the course of which he elucidates 13 theories on lone shoe origin. Clearly, what Dave needs is to meet a nice girl. It is high time I settled matters once and for all.

First a few observations from the field. As usual in the case of your more inscrutable questions, Cecil and his minions have been prospecting for tips on the radio. So far we have come up with the following:



Peak shoe spotting season is summer through fall.


There is disagreement on how widespread the phenomenon is. Contrary to your report, some say it's confined to North America, and that you never see shoes on, say, the German autobahn.


There is no single explanation for the lone shoes. One woman said she placed an extra pair of shoes on the roof of the car while she loaded some stuff, then forgot about them and pulled off. When she checked a while later they were gone. Another said a passenger had his feet up on the dash when the car hit a pothole, whereupon he became unshoed. Unshod. You know what I mean. Yet another claimed he personally had gone around the country strategically depositing shoes in order to sow panic amongst the populace. There's one in every crowd.


None of this really gets at the heart of the matter, however. Cecil and his dedicated research team, including two short and irrepressible members who several times came perilously close to contributing personally to the lost shoe population, recently conducted a 1,500-mile cross-country car trip, traveling on everything from interstates to gravel roads. En route we passed thousands of identifiable items of roadside debris, chiefly pieces of retread tire on the interstates (how anybody can stand to drive on those things I will never know) and food packaging (mostly cans and bottles) everywhere else. Total shoe count: four, including one each in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Louisville, Kentucky, and two on the road into Chicago.

Granted this was in May, not (to hear some tell it) the height of shoe season. And I probably missed a few, such as when one of the little researchers was screaming at the top of her lungs. Still, considering the vast quantity of roadside junk, we are talking about a tiny number of shoes. I would venture to say people have the idea that the highways are littered with shoes because (1) a roadside shoe is such an ineffably memorable sight, and (2) virtually all other trash on the road is either anonymous or numbingly commonplace. As to why you always see one shoe, never a pair, what do you expect? Assuming most of the shoes are lost by accident, the chances of two randomly ejected shoes landing together is vanishingly small.

Answer 2

I know exactly what you are talking about only I mostly see only one shoe. My theory is the passenger is hanging their foot out the window and when the bring their foot back in their shoe pops off. It may not be an accurate theory but it's the one that I came up with when pondering this subject one day while driving and seeing yet another stray shoe on the road.

Answer 3

People putting their feet out the windows ... siblings taunting the other and holding the shoe in front of the open window ... coming from the beach they forget and leave the shoes on TOP of the car ... someone forgot to tie down the load in the truck and they fell out ... kids on buses do crazy things .. like toss a shoe of another child out the window ...

Answer 4

I think that I will go to my nearest thrift store and buy several pairs of shoes and spray paint them international orange. On my next rip, I will leave a trail on the roadside, one shoe at a time.

Answer 5

I think when kids get new shoes maybe they just think it is funny and throw their old ones out of the window of the car. Also kids may think it is funny to throw the other person's shoe or shoes out the window of the car! Just like why do we seem to loose one sock in the washer!

Answer 6

well i agree i dont think it is always an accident-maybe someone was walking and just took off their shoes to be more comfortable-maybe they fell out of a car or better yet thrown out of a car..who knows..if the shoes could only talk!

Answer 7

I saw a pair of shoes and a pair of underwear laying on the ground.. for some reason it really bothered me

Answer 8

Because, there is always some idiot teenager thinking it's bloody funny, to throw someone's shoe out the window of moving buses, on school excursions.

Answer 9

I see someone else has wondered about the shoe mystery. Maybe they fall off when people are on motorcycles or lose a box when moving.

Answer 10

hhmm i dont see shoes on the side of the road but i do know that if shoes are laced together and thrown over a line (like a telephone line or something) then its means its a place to go get drugs ,,,,,,,,crazy i know