There was absolutely no need to give my car a “love tap”. I was trying to get out of a gas station onto a busy street. Like the other two or three people walking past, it would have taken you TWO STEPS to go behind me (also known as common sense), there was lots of room, but your self-entitlement gave you an excuse to hit my car as you jogged past. Don’t ever do that again. …fucking self-important douche. —Blue civic
This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2015.
DEFINING COMMON SENSE
“Like the two or three other people walking past, it would have taken you TWO STEPS to go behind me (also known as common sense), there was lots of room, but your self-entitlement gave you an excuse to hit my car as you jogged past.” Blue civic
What we have here is a case of conflicting self-entitlements. On the one hand, the joggers felt entitled to proceed along their way without obstruction. On the other hand, the driver felt entitled to proceed across the pavement into the busy street so as to avoid a possible accident with another car. Both cases of entitlement appear to be reasonable. So how is this case to be adjudicated?
While the joggers gave no further grounds for their entitlement – the fact that they outnumbered the driver might have been brought forward but was not – the driver appeals to “common sense” but fails to demonstrate just how taking TWO STEPS to go behind him constitutes a compelling example of such common sense. Ordinarily, one thinks of common sense as avoiding obvious dangers of one sort of another but it is unclear that taking TWO STEPS behind the driver’s car embodied such avoidance.
Clearly, it falls to the driver to (a) define what he means by “common sense” and (b) demonstrate just how the failure of the joggers to take TWO STEPS behind the car embodied a such a lapse of common sense. We await such a definition and demonstration with anticipation.
A pleasure as always,
Cheerio!
walking behind the exiting car seems to make sense unless the driver is a dimwit who backs up suddenly because they had their nose too far out into the road.
happens.
And that type of thing does happen too often GDM.
He/she was probably tapping the vehicle to let you know of their presence. Maybe you weren’t making eye contact.
You’re the one blocking the sidewalk douche.
Could have been worse OB. Some runners told me once how they had been ticked off that a car was blocking the crosswalk when they had the walk signal so they all just clambered over the hood of the car. The driver then drove off and they continued on their way as if nothing happened.
The orthopaedic surgeons in this city must be rubbing their hands together in sweet anticipation of future clients. No one has invincible pins. Pounding and punishing said pins on pavement/snow/ice makes no sense to me.
Running is good exercise and not hard on the body if done in moderation. However, I know a number of people who messed themselves up by running too much and ended up having surgery or on-going orthopaedic problems. The optimal amount for someone who is just trying to stay in shape, IMHO, is three non-consecutive days of running per week for no more than 10 kilometres. Once weekly volume exceeds a certain level (say 30 km) or individual runs get longer (10k) the risk of injury greatly increases. If you want to exercise more than this, consider yoga and/or strength training to supplement the running. Strengthening your hips and legs will help prevent injuries.