Sunday, July 15, 2007

Traffic woes...

God! They say Friday the 13th is bad... well the last 24 hours have been incredulous in terms how how people drive. It's not like prior to this there has been perfect road sense displayed by people on the road, but the recent hours have just taken the cake!
I was out yesterday for a Lion's Club function. Since I was extremely bored considering the utter lack of company and NO ONE remotely close to my age group, I decided to go out for a drive. So i'm driving and there's this junction at which I wanted to turn around and go back. The traffic police have blocked a U-turn with barricades and you have to take another road going around the barricades to go back. So I do that. As I am about to go around, there come these smart asses on the bike who decide that going all the way around is a waste of time and hence cut across the barricades thus putting themselves right by my side. Above this they expect me to give them way. When I didn't they started cursing and shouting. I used to pride myself on my patience. NOT ANY MORE. Stop car. Roll down window. Give them a good dose of verbal abuse right back and then give them the choice of calling the cops if they wish to make a complaint against me. Yeah right. And they would explain what?
I drive on. There's a Maruti 800 ahead of me and there's a road connecting the main road from the right. Our man puts the right indicator and begins to turn right. So I dip the lights and overtake. No problemo right? Naah! Our champ has a change of mind and swerves left onto the main road with the right indicator still on. Brakes screech and both vehicles come to a halt. No impact, thankfully. Like I said earlier, lack of patience on my side. So I roll down my window to ask him if he's drunk driving like a maniac around. Guess what? He starts yelling at me!!?? I seriously have got minimal patience given the circumstances. Completely blew up on him Verbally, of course. His right indicator was still on. Fired him inside out and finally he shut up. Sheesh!
I mean, seriously, who wouldn't get mad when you're on a bike going down the right way in a one way street and midway you get a car coming the wrong way with him telling you to go to the side to let him through. Well HELL NO! Do what you want. I ain't moving aside buster. You reverse out of here and let me through. If he refuses, well you can always threaten to call the cops and then what would he do?
But the worst part is when we have places of religious worship just by the side of the road and people park their vehicles on the road to go pay their respects. Well, the road is just about the required width to allow two trucks to pass side by side. Park vehicles on the road? Hell, we got ourselves a one way lane!

It's plain civic sense people! How difficult can that be to understand!

1 comment:

Mark IV said...

well... like buddha said (i think buddha said), one should learn to laugh at the face of life's miseries...

this one time i braked before the stop line(goin pretty slow) for a red light. and this car guy right behind me shows his driving prowess with a sharp dip to my left, overtakes me there and (trust me on this part), rolls his windows down, turns his face to look at me and swear cos i stopped... and consequently crashed into an auto in front.... and finally he jumps out, rushes to my window, and continues swearing. and i? opened the door, stepped out, and completely broke down laughing at the idiot he was.
buddha would be so proud of me!