P. needs a green light or else about 100 meters clear of traffic before she will cross a road, whereas I often go for it with much less favourable conditions. This difference in attitudes is deeply rooted. I tend to think of other road users as generally reasonable, rational souls who will slow down if they see a pedestrian in the road ahead, and I am also quite confident about my own ability to get out of trouble. Several years ago, P.’s brother was run over and almost killed on a pedestrian crossing (with the green light for pedestrians). She consequently has much less trust of drivers, probably rightly so, and also does not like to rush, preferring to wait for a while. I will try to learn this lesson before I learn it the hard way, I am sure it wo increase my life-expectancy.
I despise the abuse of power, which is how I see it when drivers try to intimidate pedestrians who have the right of way. This can be seen quite a lot in Chile, where the highway code and the traffic signals are designed to allow drivers to turn left through pedestrian crossings when the pedestrians have the green light. In theory they are only allowed to do this if there are no pedestrians crossing. In practice, most drivers are OK but some will try to zoom round the corner before the pedestrians have started crossing, which is nasty because other cars tend to “follow the leader”. So, I have learned to get out into the road as quickly as possible when the green light shows. This usually works, but can be unnerving when I am faced by a driver trying the zoom tactic, when the situation starts to resemble a game of chicken. Why did the chicken cross the road?
Looking at the situation from the other side of the windscreen, I know that many drivers dislike it when pedestrians cross the road where there is no formal crossing, and when cyclists ride without lights or act as if the traffic signals and the highway code do not apply to them. I tend to disagree, but can sympathise with this point of view; they do not want to hurt anyone, and inevitable end up slowing down to reduce the risk of accidents. Then there is the other type of driver who wants to get to where they are going as soon as possible and who doesn’t think too much about more vulnerable road users – who should look after their own safety. I suspect that these people also tend to drive their kids to school “because the roads are not safe”. Perhaps the worst kind of driver is the reckless kind who drives to calm down when they are angry, who drives when they have drunk too much, who drives when they are stressed or tired - and woe betide the person who dares to cross their path at the wrong moment. I remember once having to swallow my anger at having almost been knocked off my bike – when the driver screeched to a halt and made clear that he was willing to have another go (“damn, missed”). The only good thing about the reckless drivers is that they go as quickly as they arrived.
More than once I have thought that the windscreen – or windshield – is a good example of how people are willing to disrespect and mistreat other people given a certain amount of power and a certain degree of separation. The car gives the driver both of these things. Power: the car is a potentially lethal weapon, it can be used to threaten and on the occasions that pedestrians or other road users are killed, in most parts of the world the sentences applied by the justice system show a great deal of lenience and the culprits are often back on the road in a short while. Could it be that in many parts of the world, taking away the right to drive would be effectively taking away the job and the lifestyle? Separation: people who use the car every day tend to live far from where they work, and spend most of their time driving through streets that are not inhabited by their family, friends, colleagues or neighbours. Often we do not even know our neighbours, anyway – how many times have we been disturbed by loud music and have had no idea of who was having the good time?
The car was out of sight. As we walked on, I felt the rush of adrenaline, with nothing to use it for. P. commented "Dinosaur on wheels", and we laughed.
