From Wikipedia
Stampede events that involve humans are extremely rare and are unlikely to be fatal.[5] According to Keith Still, professor of crowd science at Manchester Metropolitan University, “If you look at the analysis, I’ve not seen any instances of the cause of mass fatalities being a stampede. People don’t die because they panic. They panic because they are dying”.[5]
Paul Torrens, a professor at the Center for Geospatial Information Science at the University of Maryland, remarks that “the idea of the hysterical mass is a myth”.[5] Incidents involving crowds are often reported by media as the results of panic.[16][17] However, the scientific literature has explained how panic is a myth which is used to mislead the attention of the public from the real causes of crowd incidents, such as a crowd crush.[18][19][20] […] [M]ost major crowd disasters can be prevented by simple crowd management strategies.[22] Crushes can be prevented by organization and traffic control, such as barriers. […] Such incidents are invariably the product of organisational failures.[4]
This person has never been on an escalator going to a platform where people aren’t moving out of the way.
It changes things when a machine is involved.
I think that was their point no?, it is not people exactly , but an outside influence causing the issue. like the escalator doesn’t stop crushing people unless you hit the stop button. A poorly designed event leads to poor outcome. It’s why the Romans had the vomitorium exits instead of a single width passage, they planned ahead for everyone leaving at once