Situation Awareness in the City

The term "situation awareness" began with the military, which makes sense.  The term means exactly how it sounds -- being aware of your situation.  Because in the military, your life depends on being aware. 
Situation awareness is also a term that should be used for the rest of us in our daily lives.  In a nation as crowded and busy as ours, when we are all somehow bumping into each other, situation awareness is not only a personal responsibility, it is common courtesy.
Take, for example, the every day scenrio of being at the supermarket.  Each and every one of us has, at some point in time, been both the person blocking the aisle, and the person trying to get by.  It depends on your state of mind at the time, doesn't it?  And yet each of us knows, when we're the person trying to get by, how irritating it is that someone else is blocking the aisle.  Now I know you're thinking that if you just say "excuse me", that person will move, right?  That's what most of us do.  But what about that person who is so zoned out that he or she doesn't hear you?  That person has blocked off situation awareness.  If only he or she hadn't, you could get by!
Okay, so maybe you do your shopping on a Sunday morning when the world is at church or in bed, and that doesn't happen.  Perhaps you drive to work or somewhere else during the day.  If ever a circumstance in life called for knowing what's around you, it is when you're driving!  And yet, have you seen the ladies applying lipstick and men shaving while they're driving?  These people are not aware of their situation, they are aware of their face in the mirror, and that's about it!  They are an accident waiting to happen.  Or how about the person who decides to change lanes without looking?  That is the most deliberate lack of situation awareness I have ever seen.
For good measure, I'll give you one more example.  Metro riders listening to their ipods.  I realize the ride is slow and long, and some people want a worthwhile past-time.  The problem is, they don't hear who is around them -- or anything else.  I know you think they can see, but what happens is that listening to ipod puts them in their own world, so that they don't actually see what they are looking at.  As a consequence, they are blocking doors, blocking escalators, and blocking turnstiles without even the smallest idea of the impact during rush hour.  They do this walking down the street too!
I'm not saying I'm always 100% alert -- that's hard for anyone to achieve without training.  But I do try to know who and what is around me most of the time, not only to be courteous, but also to protect myself.  And yet here I am, living in the nation's capitol, and I find that people here are tuned-out.  What's more disconcerting is that so many people here work for the Federal government -- and they are the same people who seem to shut-off their situation awareness.  If they make such a habit of it, then how can they possibly run a government well? 
I say we get the military in them to whip them into shape!  Situation awareness for everyone!  A la mode!