by Cathy
Even if you've never seen Midnight Cowboy, you have undoubtedly caught this scene somewhere:
It is said that this famous scene was improvised by Dustin Hoffman; that cab wasn't supposed to be on set and the reaction of the driver and the people in the background say it all.
When I first saw this, I laughed my arse off and I still do to this day. However, it's not so funny if you are the unassuming driver, or gasp! even a driver who really does have the right of way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, pedestrians always have the right of way and use that as their silver bullet, but sometimes, ya kinda just want to run them over.
First off, that pounding Hoffman gave on the hood of that cab? Absolutely unacceptable. You touch my car, I WILL run you over. I am sitting behind the wheel of a very powerful machine, okay?? I once had a bicyclist slam on the top of my car as he was riding by because I was double-parked a few inches into the bicycle lane. To top it off, he screamed some obscenity through my window, right to my bewildered face, as my baby slept in the back seat. And because of that? He's lucky I didn't go after him and force him into some parked cars.
Which brings me to another point, dear road-raged pedestrian/cyclist: before you haul up and start spewing sewage from your mouth into my open car window while behaving like a tantrum-throwing child, show some shred of respect and check to see that there are no kids in the car! I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me, and I, getting caught up in the moment, reciprocate the same ugly behavior back, forgetting for those few enraged seconds, that my kids are observing, listening, watching and well, taking life lessons from me, these of which I never intend to have them learn.
Everyone talks about Road Rage but why are they so tight-lipped about Pedestrian Rage? Haven't they noticed that in the last several years, not to be outshined by Road Ragers, pedestrians began waging a silent war by banding together in a seemingly underground fashion to wreak antagonistic havoc on all drivers? Have you noticed that if you stop an inch too far into the crossing lane while they are walking, or start accelerating as they just finish passing your car, you get a glaring sideways look of death from them? And God forbid you don't happen to see them because, wouldn't you know, they happen to be the line of one of several of your blind spots; that takes them to Defcon 6.
What could possibly set them on such a constant edge? Obviously they are pissed off that I am driving and they have to walk. And as walkers with their walking rights, even tree limbs should bend and bow to them as they walk past, right? They need to get over themselves.
I once read somewhere that a driver has around 200 possible distractions to contend with while driving, including inclement weather, street conditions, construction, potholes, traffic, directions, other drivers, what's going on inside the car (babies, conversations, fighting children), stop signs, speed limits, jaywalkers. bicyclists, traffic signals, animals, thinking about their next stop, cell phones, radio, eating, other traffic violators, car trouble, blind spots and on and on.
Therefore, dear pedestrians, we drivers don't intend to or purposefully want to run your ass over. That's not what we set out to do when we get behind the wheel. We just want to get from point A to point B and all the midpoints in between, move on with our day and deal with life's stresses as we're doing it. But you obviously think that that is EXACTLY what we want to do.
And you know, what? Push us in the wrong direction, and we just might. Why? 'Cause we're drivin' heah! We're drivin'!
