Vladimir Chramosta

DRIVING IN THE CITY

If driving in the city is so easy, why do we have so many accidents there? This is a difficult question to answer and just as complicated as the driving itself. It all starts with driver’s attitude and I think “ME Generation” is taking over; I am here, I am going, get out of my way. Everything is mine. This is my lane, my parking spot. Oh yes, the parking lots. It must have been “ME Generation” again to “Invent” parking across two parking spaces to “shield” their car from “Intruders” who could park their ugly vehicles too close to MINE. Sometimes I wish I would have an old beaten up car and a friend with another one, to park on each side, perfectly so the ME/he can’t get out. “I really don’t like parking too close to the mall. Too many cars there and they could scratch my paint!!!” He or she would say. Huh? And I do want mine get scratched? Maybe this one is not their fault though, at least not entirely. Funny thing happened to our parking lots lately. They used to be large enough for our huge pink Cadillac from the sixties and we were still able to open the door without hitting our “Neighbor” with it. Today, the cars are half the size and we can hardly get out when parked in a busy parking lot between two other cars. So, I do park my car at the far end of the lot too, but I don’t take two spots. Even driving around the parking lot became more difficult as THEY are trying to “Fit” in more cars, which in turn means more customers, of course. Well that’s the price we have ho to pay for living in the city and when it comes to driving, the parking lots are still easier to negotiate than city streets. At least the speeds are lower there and when we hit each other the repair bill is comparatively lower.

Driving through the city streets is different matter though and sometimes, especially in rush hour, the city looks more like a bumper car attraction in the amusement park, than organized chaos. If we just realize, we all are behind the wheel for the same reason, which is to get around and share the roads peacefully there would be no problem. Of course, it would help if we all learned to drive before we start using the streets. Maybe there should be some kind of special and compulsory course which would teach us how to behave behind the wheel. It puzzles me why we can be nice to people we meet in the shopping mall or on the street, be polite, and smile at each other and soon as we get behind the wheel we change into a totally different beast. We don’t care then if the driver in the other vehicle is a man or a woman, young or old, soon as they do something we don’t approve off, the finger goes up, windows go down and words begin to fly. Everybody is stupid and no one can drive except us. Yet we can sit quietly in a waiting room at the doctor’s office and never (almost,) run out of the patience. Put us back in a car and all the patience is immediately gone. Soon as we are behind the wheel it’s like being in a different world, our private world, where everybody else has to play by OUR rules and if they don’t, we have to teach them a lesson. Maybe it’s what the city life is doing to us. It is a new life style in a new aggressive world. The Best Defense Is Offence? Is that it? I hope not, because the Defensive driving would not make much sense then. It would be like: ‘Oh, it looks like that guy is planning to hit me, so I better hit him first,’ which begins to sound like George W. Bush with his preemptive strikes. The fact is that driving in the city, more than anywhere else, needs our full attention and we should concentrate on how to get to our destination safely instead of ‘I HAVE TO BE THERE RIGHT NOW,’ or ‘I AM LATE.’ Another problem is that we don’t want to be early either. Trying to make time in city traffic might be just asking for trouble. Switching lanes imagining the traffic in the other lane is moving faster is usually waste of energy and most of the time we find ourselves in the same spot as we were before or maybe one or two cars ahead. Let’s just go back to the original “Travel question:” How much time can we gain? What difference will it make if we get ahead of those two vehicles in front of us? Instead we should concentrate on being in the correct lane that will get us to our destination and at the same time let’s not forget we are not the only users of the road. More than ever it is necessary to “Read” other drivers and not only those in front of us, but those in the other lane and behind us. We can not afford not to pay attention, and we should not even think of drinking coffee, eating a sandwich, putting on the lipstick, or conversing on the cell phone. If you see someone doing that in the car in front of you, or in the next lane, watch him, be on the lookout, because it only means one thing: HE OR SHE IS NOT PAYING ATTENTION. Watch for pedestrians, especially at the intersections without traffic lights. Some are just as bad as the drivers, after all, they are mostly drivers too. Scan your surroundings constantly. Expect pedestrians popping up seemingly from nowhere, look even under the tall vehicles parked on the side of the street watch the cars in neighboring lanes ahead of you and if they are slowing down suddenly, which usually means they see something you don’t and they maybe getting ready to stop and let a pedestrian to cross the road, be ready to do the same. Take your time.

There are places on this planet though, where it doesn’t pay to be nice to the pedestrians though, as I learned while visiting Prague in Czech Republic:

Driving through downtown core at one busy, uncontrolled, intersection where virtually hundreds of pedestrians were waiting for a traffic to pause at marked crossing, I was surprised by the driver’s unwillingness to stop and let these poor people to cross the street, so when it was my turn to drive through, I have done what we are accustomed to do here, I stopped. What followed was unbelievable. All these people started to cross the street. In the same moment all the drivers behind me hit the horn and when I turned my head, all I could see on their faces was disbelieve and something that would translate to: “WHY ARE YOU STOPPING, STUPID?” In a few seconds I began to understand. This solid wall of people crossing the street was not going to stop and there was no end to it in sight. It was like when you are sitting at the railway crossing waiting for the end of the train, except in this case there apparently was no end and I knew I have to do something if I don’t want to get killed by all those very unhappy drivers behind me. I began to move ever so slowly, hoping that some of the pedestrians will stop and let me get through. In an instance I began to receive the “Finger” signs from all the directions with some fists hitting the hood of my rented car. I knew then, why no driver wanted to stop at that crossing, and I realized that the drivers and pedestrians in our country are not so bad after all.

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