Don't Drive at Me

I’ve had eighteen years of writing this blog. Gosh. I had to go and check that. Yup. Kicked it off in 2008, or last week as it’s otherwise known. It’s indicative of something, I suppose, that I started doing this back when lots of people were doing it and I’m still doing it after practically everyone else has stopped. I think it demonstrates how I’m not very good at letting things go. Old shoes, books, blogs. If I’ve got something I tend to hold on to it.

None of which has much of anything to do with this week’s post. If there is any relevance in that first paragraph it is probably this; After eighteen years of (more-or-less) weekly posts, it becomes quite easy to categorise the entries into quite a small list of subjects. I tend to wander around in the same circles I have always wandered around. A list of recurring themes for the 900 or so posts on here might include ‘Stupid Things I do', Trying to Write’, ‘Memories of Childhood’, ‘Movies’ or, in latter years ‘The Cat’ or, in latter months, ‘The ‘Thing.''

Another of these regularly revisited categories would certainly be ‘The Poor Quality of Driving in the World.’ I seem to have come back to this time and time again, usually with some instance of less-than-optimal interaction out there on the road, each time with a slightly different complaint. I’m aware that it’s one of the less engaging themes I pursue but you type where your heart takes you with this type of endeavour and I am often taken there, out onto the road, the footpath, the pedestrian crossing.

I think the reason I often swerve back to this subject is potentially interesting. It’s almost a ‘split personality’ kind of a thing. When I’m on foot, observing the ways of the everyday motorist, I maintain a stoic, frequently troubled aspect. But, when I’m behind the wheel myself, I can sometimes step back and see myself as the kind of prick who would piss me off if I was standing on the pavement watching me go by. Does that even make sense? Split personality stuff is tricky at the best of times.

Which takes us, rather convolutedly, to this week’s subject matter, which can be summed up neatly by the title of the piece. Don’t drive at me.

I think this is a relatively new thing. Or maybe I just started to notice it when my ambulatory skills became a little compromised in recent months. No, we won’t talk about the ‘thing’ again except to say that I may not be able to get out of the way of oncoming traffic as nimbly as I used to. Perhaps that’s why this behaviour is now on my radar where it rarely seemed to be before.

What is it, is this:

At a pedestrian light, or a zebra crossing, or, lord help us, a courtesy crossing, cars will stop and I will cross. Sometimes the driver will wave me across impatiently as if I am some waif who has been permitted into their sitting room to light the fire. “Get it done and begone as quickly as possible, fool!” Man, that pisses me off. The implication is that the driver’s time is more important than mine because, to quote David Byrne, they’re behind the wheel of an automobile. While, to quote Richard Pryor, the only thing I’m pushing is my Hush Puppies. ‘Verily, fuck you,’ I say to myself as I amble across in front of the belligerently gesticulating hand of the driver.

This relates to my current problem. It’s perhaps a second cousin to it. But it isn’t it.

What it really is, is this:

Cars stop and I amble across. Then, when I’m about half way over the road, and when I’m often right in front of the waiting car, said car starts to ease forward. Gently, gently, rolling towards me, encouraging me on, and almost brushing my declining butt as I pass beyond the fender of the car.

I don’t like this. That’s the point of this week’s blog post. I don’t like that shit one little bit.

Granted, my example is an extreme occurrence. Not every car brushes me as I get past them. But this gentle rolling towards me as I cross, that is a very real and a very regular thing now. “I’ll let you over,” the driver seems to be saying to themselves, “but I’m going to give you the absolute minimum time to do it. I’ll roll towards you a bit, as you walk, where’s the harm in that? Eh? Eh?”

Where’s the fucking harm? You tow rag, you asshole. I’ll tell you where the fucking harm is.

You are pinning my life, or at least my continued wellbeing, on your clutch control.

Here you are, easing towards me, letting your clutch pedal out gently. Coming at me but under such wonderful control. Supposing your foot slips or your control slips? You are a millimetre from leaping your horrible little motor forward and hitting me, rolling gently towards me as you are. And for what? Where are you going with such sacred urgency that you can’t just sit and let me cross the goddamned road without spaffing your need to get on all over my day.

It annoys me. Can you tell?

Don’t be rolling forward gently at the poor soul crossing the road in front of you. You’re not in that big a rush and, frankly, you’re not that good a driver. Sit there like a good person and let me get over the road. Then on you go.

I sometimes think that if those public service driving adverts had a little more swearing in them, they might have more impact.

I’m here if you need some input on that.