maximize room on benches, please

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there's a small bench outside my local grocery store. i went to sit on it the other day, to rest between a walk and a shop, but there was a man sitting on it. there would have been plenty of room for us both to sit there, if he'd been sitting to one side or the other, but he was sitting smack in the middle. i was cognitively fogged-out from walking too far, and i did not have a communication spoon to ask him, "excuse me, could you move over so that i could sit here too?"

so here is my accessibility win request today: if you sit on a public bench that doesn't have other currently-free benches nearby, please increase other people's accessibility to that bench by sitting to one side or the other, rather than the middle. yes, a person could arrive and ask that you move over, but there might be a reason why asking is hard for them.

(i can't think of a reason why a person would actually need to sit in the middle of a bench, but a reason could exist and be totally valid; if there's a good reason you need to sit in the middle, that is obviously fine.)