Human beings are emotional and those emotions spill over in to the way that people drive. Emotions naturally also have an impact on the way that a pedestrian walks or a cyclist bikes, but I choose to focus on those who drive cars, vans, and 'light' trucks since they are able to do the most damage.
Everyone has a story about an out of control driver. Most of us can remember seeing one in the past few days. Today I saw 3 of them on my short commute to the gym. First a young man in a small SUV played chicken with a livery cab in the intersection of 125th and St. Nicks in Harlem. The livery cab (shockingly some might say) was in the right and merely trying to avoid the aggressive angry driver. I could see the young man in control of the SUV his face wrought and red with some sort of emotion shouting word that no one could hear through the sound-proof glass of his car windows-- was he late? Tired of backing down? Ready to run over the next person or thing that got in his way? I will never know, but they were just inches from a head on collision. He back up and jerked forward over and over. It was terrifying. An old man crossing the street in front of me with a shopping cart muttered "he's out of his mind!" but he still crossed the street. Emotional dangerous driving is something we just put up with. It's just a fact of life. You stand back, hope you see it before it hits you. What else can you do?
This was only one of three such scrapes I saw in one short commute. The more I see this type of thing the more frayed my nerves become. I would like to offer an observation that I can't back up with statistics, but it seems that when I'm in a less wealthy neighborhood the driving is much much worse. I see more cars muscling pedestrians out of their way, more speeding. More red-light and cross walk ignoring, and more drivers using the road and their car as a way to work out what appear to be very negative emotions. The most aggravating part is that these public menaces are not people from our less wealthy neighborhoods! They are the same drivers you see in midtown and on the upper east side-- they are just passing through. Most folks in Harlem and the South Bronx don't even bother with driving and couldn't afford it even if they wanted to-- yet it's in these places that cars make the streets the most miserable.
And when people are hit by drivers, maimed, killed, disabled for life, disfigured we call it an accident no matter what state of mind the driver may have been in. It's always just another 'accident.'
It is very hard to get attention for safe streets. When I say to a cop that I worried about the streets being safe he thinks I mean gangs or something at first. But an gang has never hit me. A car has. I get nervous about walking after dark... not because of muggers or anything but because the drivers can't see you as well and they don't do a such a great job of looking either. And with so many breaking the speed limit how can they possibly stop even if they do see you? But, when I talk about how much this scares me the eyes of cop glaze over-- the people who hold political positions tend to be from the driving minority around here and they don't get it either. I was almost hit by a city council woman once making and illegal U-turn on the Grand Concourse. Now I know why she ignores my letters.
This isn't a deep dairy, Mostly something I just wanted to say. Lest I become an emotional pedestrian or cyclist. Don't you worry I'm not giving up or anything. I just feel like I'm fighting something very big very old. And I know some of you will understand. Thanks for reading.