Road Kill

When I was growing up, there were some dos and don't of using the roads, which my parents drilled into me. Don't run across the road. Don't walk behind, or in front of a moving vehicle. Use the pedestrian crossing when available. Don't walk out from behind a stationery vehicle, especially buses and trucks. Some of these are common sense, at least if you don't want to get run over. Now you can argue about the pros and cons of seatbelts and the like, but shouldn't it be obvious that getting hit by a car is a bad thing? Yet I see daily violations of these pedestrian safety guidelines.

First violation: while waiting at a stoplight one night, a woman ran across the pedestrian crossing. Because of the breakneck speed at which she was running, I fully expected to see the police or a mob chasing her. The light was on red at the time, and the walk sign was prominently lit. So there was no reason to rush. Kudos to her for using the pedestrian crossing, but why the sprint? Perhaps she was worried that the light was about to change. But had she fallen at that point, dog nyam har supper. While pondering her crazy act, I witnessed her bolting back across shortly after. Go figure.

Second violation: while executing a parallel park today, I turned around in time to see a woman casually walking behind my reversing car. She was busy looking at something in her hand, a booklet of some sort. Maybe she was picking her coffin, because she surely had a death wish.

Crossing on the pedestrian crossing appears to be the exception in this country (the exception being our female Usain Bolt cited earlier). For the third violation I cite a bunch of school children who decided to co-opt South Camp Road. Stepping out into the traffic, they forced a taxi driver and a police car to halt so that they could cross. They are some brave kids to have chanced stepping out within 100 metres of that taxi driver! And had I been that officer, I would have reprimanded them and told them to use the pedestrian crossing next time. I might even have taken a few of them down to the station for a firm talking to, just to shake them up.

For a violation of not crossing from behind a stationary vehicle, you can see my previous blog post "Occupational Hazard". I should add to that list bus conductors, who obviously think themselves indestructible.

While Jamaicans aren't known for being the safest or most courteous drivers, let's not overlook the fact that we are equally bad pedestrians. This country needs jay walking laws! Give motorists a rest, go ticket some pedestrians to make up the budget deficit.

Learning The Wrong Lesson

In life there are always experiences which present opportunities to learn valuable lessons. If we learn them, we can become better individuals, and live more fulfilling lives. Sometimes we miss the lesson, which is a loss. But worse than missing the lesson is learning the wrong one.

Imagine for a moment a taxi driver tailgating a car as they approach a stoplight. The light changes to yellow, the car in front stops, and the taxi driver runs into the poor law abiding female driver. Yes, I'm about to pick on taxi drivers. No, I'm not going to criticize the woman for stopping, but making her female is far more interesting.

So out jumps the taxi driver who proceeds to cuss the woman, question her ancestry, and make a mockery of her motoring skills. Of course he is in the wrong, and this should teach him to leave some space for air between his bumper and the car in front of him. He should also learn that yellow and green are not different shades of the same colour. Instead he chooses to learn that women drivers are timid, and obviously colour blind.

Sometimes we are all like taxi men. We learn the wrong lesson, because it is easier to blame someone else for our mistake. We also learn the wrong lesson when we are grossly ignorant of the fact that our outlook or actions are flawed.

When the casualties of our ignorance are qualities that will help us lead more satisfying lives, we are losing in a high stakes game. For example: we all crave acceptance, and we can sate this craving only by laying ourselves bare to another. This requires us to open ourselves, and trust another person to tread cautiously with what we reveal. Such endeavours are fraught with challenges. Not everyone is comfortable with emotional nudity, and they may not handle our revelation well. Or perhaps we should have done a strip tease instead of flashing the victim of our disclosure.

Overall, getting hurt is inevitable, but that does not mean that we should go through life in constant fear of pain. Neither does it mean that we should be reckless taxi drivers; there are no insurance policies for hearts and feelings. While it is essential to be careful of who we trust, it is equally important to mind how quickly we place our trust in others. Instead of rushing headlong into the next person, we need to step on our brakes and pace ourselves.

The wrong lesson, the lesson we often choose to learn, is to close the door to our soul and let no one in. We learn that we are too complicated to be understood and accepted. We immolate openness and trust on the altar of skepticism, having suffered rejection and feeling that our trust was betrayed. Then we place our hearts and feelings on ice, bury them within, and leave them there.

Horoscopes Are Rubbish!

There are few questions more annoying to me than "what month were you born?". I find it frustrating because this widely held belief system is prejudicial. People immediately form opinions about themselves and others based on one little fact - the date some doctor or midwife slapped you on your rump to make you cry. I don't know about you, but I want to start with a clean slate! Don't let some system decide for you who I am. Get to know me, find out for yourself. This is no different than judging me based on my skin colour, nationality, or gender.

If the proclivity to promote bias was their only shortcoming, then I might only be mildly annoyed by zodiac signs. But the zodiac and horoscopes thoroughly peeve me because they are fundamentally flawed. Yes, that's right, they are just plain wrong.

Now before you label me as a skeptical Sagittarian, let's talk about the basis of the zodiac. Without getting into details, the premise behind the signs of the zodiac is that the sun, earth and stars have specific relative alignments at different points throughout the year. So one's date of birth places you under a sign, and this sign determines (or reveals if you prefer) your personality type.

Now here is where this house of cards starts to tumble. What most people don't realize is that the relative positions of these stellar bodies change over time. The sun, earth, and other heavenly objects that form the basis of the zodiac are not in the same relative positions as they were thousands of years ago when the zodiac was invented! So someone who was born this year as an Aquarian, would not have fallen under this sign when the zodiac was first defined.

Put another way, let's say you grew up thinking that you were a Libra, then you discovered that they made a mistake on your birth certificate. So now you're really a Gemini. All you have ever known about yourself has been shattered! Poor you, a lost, internally conflicted, disillusioned soul. Well, that is kinda what's up with the Zodiac: none of the signs match up anymore.

The die hard faithful are probably screaming at their computer screens, or tossing their phones in protest. "But I know my sign is right, it's so me", they sob to themselves quite uncontrollably. Now this post is a diatribe, not a treatise, but I will offer a few simple explanations for why they seem to apply.

No one has a static, flat personality. We all have a number of traits which may come out at different times, and in different circumstances. You'll see anything if you look hard enough; you'll see what you want to see.

Then there are the self fulfilling prophecies - you fail because you think you're a failure; you cheated on your man because you think you're a fiery Leo, and that's how Leos roll. You're really not a bad person, the universe made you do it.

You may not like those explanations, but such is life. Other explanations abound, and anything you come up with will certainly make more sense than the horoscopes! So go, be free of your mental chains. Oh, and Santa Clause isn't real either.

Occupational Hazard

Some people have jobs which are inherently dangerous, and they adapt to this danger, and learn to protect themselves.  Police officers are practically walking bulls eyes - at least that's how I feel when I'm around them.  I just imagine someone taking a shot at them, and hitting me instead.  But I digress.  Their jobs are dangerous, so they learn to be alert and to wear bullet proof vests.  They adapt and exercise caution. 

Then there are some people whose jobs are not necessarily dangerous, but involve the possibility of accidents.  And no, I don't mean taxi drivers.  They generally cause accidents, but often escape scotch free!  I'm thinking about the people who sell their wares in traffic - be it the fruit in season, the ubiquitous bananas, today's newspaper, or various fandangles for your car. Not to mention the windshield extortionists.  They spend their day prancing about in traffic, dancing between cars, timing stoplights, and dodging taxi drivers.  And most of them are pretty good with their rush hour acrobatics.

But occasionally there are some who are a hazard to themselves.  Case in point: while turning on a filter light yesterday, I had to break hard to avoid hitting a woman who decided to dart across the road with her bags of apples, at the same moment the light turned green.  It was bad enough that she was hidden behind a vehicle waiting at the lights.  But to make matters worse, she was the pedestrian from hell.  First she walks out into the road, hesitates and backpedals when she sees my car, then changes her mind and runs out into the middle of the road where she froze - like a deer caught in headlights. My antilock brakes screamed as they laboured to stop my car from making her into street pizza.  Had anyone been driving behind me, I would most likely have been rear ended.

Most pedestrians don't know how to, or don't care to use traffic lights.  Instead, they expect drivers to know how to use their brakes.  But you'd think that someone who spends their day in traffic would learn a thing or two about self preservation!