On Her Planet Drivers Watch, Yield For Pedestrians
I don’t exhibit rage on the road; I incite it.
I brake for practically everyone: Small boys chasing large red balls into the street. Elderly drivers peering through cataracts to navigate traffic lights. The random 3-year-old ambling down a main arterial without a parent.
Call me crazy; call me provincial. It’s all true. I learned to drive in a town where niceness was the dominant religion and was raised on hours and hours of Presbyterian Sunday School. The message was somehow conveyed to me that with the privilege of carrying a driver’s license came a certain responsibility on my part not to kill anyone.
I realize I now live on another planet, where my mere breathing, or more precisely, mere braking, can make drivers behind me see a double shade of red.
The perverse nature of my behind-the-wheel style was driven home the other day when I stopped at a pedestrian crosswalk at Deaconess Medical Center where all other drivers must simply barrel downhill.
There was this very old woman with a walker, see, and her daughter, who was also a senior citizen, standing in the crosswalk. I flashed back to my driving lessons. If a pedestrian stands in a crosswalk, I seemed to recall that I was obliged to stop.
So I did.
I halted traffic in all four directions. People lurched to a stop behind me and we waited, as very slowly, the old woman and her gray-haired daughter proceeded across the crosswalk.
A traffic cop on a motorcycle appeared in the middle of this.
As soon as the women had crossed, and I began to accelerate, I noticed the cop maneuvering to pull up beside. At the next light, he motioned for me to roll it down.
What had I done, I wondered guiltily. Was there some obscure rule of traffic law I’d blundered? What was he about to scold me for?
I eased down my window.
The cop beamed at me. “I just want to thank you,” he said, “for stopping for them back there.”
“Er, well, you’re welcome,” I stammered. And with a smile and a wave, he roared off.
The people of my home planet would have been astounded.
, DataTimes MEMO: See 2 related stories under the headlines: 1. Furor on four wheels 2. Think of loved ones before considering speeding