This gave me the mental image of an HNer patting himself on the back for not following the crowd after finding himself burning alive in the nightclub's broom closet as it burns down.
Yeah exactly this. If you know all the exits are safe, then evenly splitting up is best. But I reckon in situations like this, most of the time you don't know and then following the rest seems like the best strategy to me.
I attended some emergency training a couple of years ago, and the instructor drove home one point in particular: always identify the exits when you’re in an unfamiliar building.
It seems like the best strategy because you figure other people know something you don't know. But since they always pick just one exit, that's not a valid conclusion.
Since the crowd behaves the same way whether they picked the best exit or a random one, you have no idea whether it's the best way out, but you do know it has added risk of delay and trampling.
