"Looks like you have left your brains at work", he said.
"You are going like a chicken!", she said.
During the first instance, I was stuck between the left rear of a truck and the right front of a parked car. I was on my bike, riding with a pillion. Stuck because we're talking peak-hour Bangalore traffic on the way home! The only reason I didn't maneuver the bike and move ahead, as I normally do, is fear of hurting my pillion. Besides, there was no point in moving ahead. We were stuck in a jam!! However, the rider behind me failed to notice this. After a couple of instances of him coaxing me to move ahead, and me refusing to budge since there was no point, he calmly delivered the first quoted line and with that, showed a bit of his stupidity. Blood boils in such circumstances, but I ignored him and focussed on breathing.
During the second instance, my heart rate was not so lucky! I was riding down a very bumpy two-lane road. There were parked cars, hawkers, elderly people walking on both sides. I was deliberately going slow, making sure I don't hit someone. Again, there was no point in hurrying, since I would have anyways run into a jam about a 100 feet away. Obviously, none of this occurred to the girl riding the bike behind me. She was honking incessantly. She too was riding pillion. I slowed down by the side, rolled down my window, gestured AND shouted to ask what her problem was. She yelled out the second quoted line.
Now, I am 'guilty' of slowing down when a pedestrian wants to cross, of letting people drive by me, of maintaining my lane, of not honking, etc. But when someone accuses me of being chicken, I don't lie low!
So I let her pass, pumped up the accelerator and went after her with an incessant honk till she disappeared into the jam. It didn't make me feel any better, though.
But the point is, all these reports blaming road rage on frustration, and vice-versa, are wrong. If, after years of riding/ driving on roads, you don't have the foresight to realise something must be wrong up ahead, you deserve to be labelled dumb. No amount of money, education, qualifications, fame and all that crap will take that away from you!
"You are going like a chicken!", she said.
During the first instance, I was stuck between the left rear of a truck and the right front of a parked car. I was on my bike, riding with a pillion. Stuck because we're talking peak-hour Bangalore traffic on the way home! The only reason I didn't maneuver the bike and move ahead, as I normally do, is fear of hurting my pillion. Besides, there was no point in moving ahead. We were stuck in a jam!! However, the rider behind me failed to notice this. After a couple of instances of him coaxing me to move ahead, and me refusing to budge since there was no point, he calmly delivered the first quoted line and with that, showed a bit of his stupidity. Blood boils in such circumstances, but I ignored him and focussed on breathing.
During the second instance, my heart rate was not so lucky! I was riding down a very bumpy two-lane road. There were parked cars, hawkers, elderly people walking on both sides. I was deliberately going slow, making sure I don't hit someone. Again, there was no point in hurrying, since I would have anyways run into a jam about a 100 feet away. Obviously, none of this occurred to the girl riding the bike behind me. She was honking incessantly. She too was riding pillion. I slowed down by the side, rolled down my window, gestured AND shouted to ask what her problem was. She yelled out the second quoted line.
Now, I am 'guilty' of slowing down when a pedestrian wants to cross, of letting people drive by me, of maintaining my lane, of not honking, etc. But when someone accuses me of being chicken, I don't lie low!
So I let her pass, pumped up the accelerator and went after her with an incessant honk till she disappeared into the jam. It didn't make me feel any better, though.
But the point is, all these reports blaming road rage on frustration, and vice-versa, are wrong. If, after years of riding/ driving on roads, you don't have the foresight to realise something must be wrong up ahead, you deserve to be labelled dumb. No amount of money, education, qualifications, fame and all that crap will take that away from you!
1 comment:
Totally agree! To borrow a colleagues words, our roads are filled with dunderheads with no respect for pedestrians, two-way traffic, lane discipline, or anything. It's amusing and ironic. Everyone is so anxious to reach their destination and in the process slows down everyone including themselves!
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