[geeks] what is the world coming to...

[alex j avriette]

On Tuesday, April 9, 2002, at 06:01 PM, Bill Bradford wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 09, 2002 at 05:56:52PM -0400, alex j avriette wrote:
>> i would, quite literally, stop the car and beat your ass for that. for
>> that matter, anyone. my being a jerk or "almost"
>> (injuring/killing/whatevering) you is not a valid excuse to damage my
>> car. sheesh.
>
> Yes, but it doesent give you a license to near-miss.

Correct. <rainman> I'm an excellent driver. </rainman> Sometimes, 
however, people misinterpret whats going on. This happens a lot in the 
car-pedestrian interaction, because pedestrians arent necessarily 
looking the 1/4-1/2 mile down the road. Allow me to share an anecdote:

So I'm cruising north on the 163 in san diego doing about 75 in the #1 
lane. I pass on my right a dark blue bmw 850csi. i had actually never 
seen one on the road before, and it was a new model. so i slowed down to 
ogle his car. really ogle. i took my time about it. anyhow, fast forward 
like 3 minutes, and i needed to change lanes. somehow (i didnt pay 
attention at the time), i wind up in front of of mister blue beemer. im 
not sure how he decided i had cut him off, but he did. (san diegans will 
know which stretch of road im referring to, the 163-15 merge north of 
kearny mesa, its a little, uh, "complex"). so the guy swerves into the 
#1 lane, jams on the gas, gets in the #2 lane in front of me, and STOMPS 
on the brake. i had no idea what was going on, and i appropriately 
avoided into the #1 lane. the guy then moves into the #1 lane, and 
stomps on the brake _again_. this time i swerve onto the shoulder and a 
little into the #2 lane, and actually have the opportunity to see the 
guy staring into his rearview mirror to INTENTIONALLY hit me -- he 
swerved to match my avoidance tactics. i managed to avoid enough that we 
literally -stopped- in the middle of a very busy freeway (had i not 
stopped, i would have hit him). i cautiously accelerated after he did, 
and he did the same thing, again. this time not as fast though.

what is the relevance?

well, what happened here was my careless ogling of his car without a 
thumbs-up or something kind of irked him. i dont know what he thought i 
was doing, but he was clearly unhappy that i was doing it. his response 
was waaaaay over the top in reaction to my "cutting him off" -- which 
might not have even bothered him had he not seen me do whatever i did 
when i was looking at his car.

the same goes for pedestrians who think that drivers are out there to 
kill them. sometimes this is the case. sometimes, however, its a matter 
of the pedestrian not fully appreciating the whole of the environment.

alex