DConf 2013 official car/room sharing thread

[H. S. Teoh]

On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 02:30:04PM -0700, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 4/18/2013 11:44 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> >Since then, I no longer assume that red lights, pedestrian walk
> >signs, or crosswalk flashing lights mean anything to drivers. You
> >might pay for that assumption with your life. *shudder*
> 
> The phrase is you don't want to be right - dead right.

Right, I'd rather be alive and wrong than *dead* right.


> The bikers and pedestrians that resolutely expect me to dodge them
> amaze me. They never even look. There'll be 4 abreast walking,
> sticking out into the lane. To pass them, the driver is forced into
> the left lane. Of course they never look to see if the drivers
> actually will.

I grew up in a country where drivers will deliberately step on the gas
if you dare jay-walk in front of them. On this continent, however, it
seems the opposite prevails -- drivers are expected to go out of their
way to be nice to you. Rumor has it that the rate of pedestrian-related
accidents for BC residents are highest *outside* the province.
Apparently people here come to take driver niceness for granted, and
then they go out into the *ahem* real world and they get run over.

*shrug*


> I drove around a blind corner once (on a fairly major road) and
> there's a guy on a bike in the middle, stopped, towing his baby behind
> the bike. I couldn't believe it! I stopped and yelled at him I was so
> upset - he was shocked that there was anything stupid about what he
> was doing.
> 
> Another time, a woman is pushing her baby carriage down the center of
> the lane. She didn't even look back as I drove up behind her. I
> stopped and yelled at her. She said "well, if my number is up, my
> number is up."
> 
> Unbelievable.
> 
> My dad used to irritate the heck out of me by driving down
> residential streets at about 10 mph. I understand now why he did
> that.

Yeah, up here in the Great White North we also have our fair share of
people who do stupid things on the road... like jay-walk across a busy
street at night wearing dark clothes, or ride a bike down an unlit
street at night *without* any blinkers or lights of any sort (or helmet,
for that matter). Worst are those who would walk in front of a moving
car and then yell at the driver for not stopping for them (this actually
happened to my then-fiancée once -- I was in the car, and quite
speechless at the pedestrian's audacity).

Of course, back in Asia where traffic rules are only recommendations, a
different kind of stupidity prevails... like zigzagging a moped through
moving traffic with a baby in one hand and bulging bags of groceries in
the other (and another child clinging to the back without a helmet).

Well, it looks like my random signature Perl script has picked out an
appropriate quote for the occasion. ;-)


T

-- 
Do not reason with the unreasonable; you lose by definition.