I like to think of myself as a rather patient person. However, since moving to Halifax a little over a year ago I have encountered more ignorant, incompetent, and distracted drivers than I ever thought imaginable! It seems as though every time I leave my home I narrowly miss getting run over. I choose to be a pedestrian for numerous reasons… but not to be a target or a crash -test dummy. I always try to follow the rules of traffic, especially when it comes to using crosswalks, I even stop look both ways and wait for traffic to slow/ stop when there isn’t a light. However, these days it seems using crosswalks are the number one death trap in this city. I’ve recently started giving the finger and yelling obscenities at those drivers who refuse to stop when I obviously have the right of way. However, this hasn’t helped me get anything but dirty looks. For example, just this morning I had begun to cross the street weighted down with a few heavy bags groceries, in a crosswalk, at a three-way stop in a busy parking lot after waiting for the cars to stop a cab driver in an older burgundy buick or oldsmobile came careening our of no where only to jolt to a stop with the front end of his car a good two feet over the far side of the cross. He then had the nerve to wag his finger at me. I certainly made sure to to flip the bastard the bird, and I know for a fact he saw it through his aviators, as his drivers side door was a mere foot and a half dead ahead of me. His only rush was to hurry up and wait in the drive-thru line at Tim Horton’s. Because of drivers like this I’m now asking Santa for a paintball gun for Chirstmas.
This article appears in Dec 13-19, 2007.
Rockin! Splat splat, giv’er dude! I find a size 11 1/2 Doc Marten in the front quarter panel often gets driver’s attention in a hurry! Better yet kick the offending car then lay down on the road and howl like a banshee in pain so that everyone around you hears/sees the look on the bastard’s face!