B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 170; Flight Crew Type 4055
Situational Awareness; Training / Qualification; Communication Breakdown
Conflict Ground Conflict; Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Airport; Human Factors
Once cleared to taxi to Bravo North from [Gate] after push tail south; the Captain turned on the taxi light. There were at least 20-30 vehicles of all types including buses that just drove right next to us on the service road between the gate and taxiway. The Captain turned on all the lights and nobody stopped; looked or bothered to stop and wait for us. We told Ramp Tower we were going to wait as the wing usually swings over the service road during turn out. It would have hit a vehicle if we had done that. It was around 3 minutes we waited for the traffic to stop. It never did; we ended up waiting until there was no more traffic. Ramp Tower said it's a continual problem at the airport and they are supposed to stop once our taxi light is turned on so we can taxi out without hitting a vehicle driving next to us on the road. I've seen this as a continuing problem. There is an utter lack of concern for airplanes at ORD. So we waited until the road cleared. We were single engine taxiing and that could cause a jet blast issue as well.
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B737 flight crew reported airport ramp traffic does not stop for aircraft pushing back from gate into vehicle roadway causing potential safety hazard.