Che Guevara said, “There is nothing worth living for, if you are not willing to die for it!” He was probably talking about freedom and rights and stuff, not crossing the road to get a croissant and a pint of milk.
Sitting at my desk this morning, staring out the window, I noticed a guy almost get run down on his way over to the supermarket. He didn’t look to see if there was traffic, and an obnoxious face behind the windscreen of a 4x4 scowled and honked at him.
We all ignore the fact that pedestrians, in most cases, have the right of way. Maybe it’s all the American tv we are subjected to – you know, when a kiddie is playing in the road and the hero sees a truck about a hundred metres away heading for it, and instead of applying the brakes, the truck driver just toots his hooter and the hero has to whisk the nipper away in the nick of time.
Maybe the world is getting dumber because American stupidity is contagious.
There are, I suppose, rights we should all be willing to die for, but if your right of way is one of them then your life must not mean a lot to you.
People on scooters are much the same.
The other day a guy on a Vespa, with a little potty helmet on his head and no doubt a pretentious ‘boo-hoo-I’m-an-emo’ hat in his backpack tried to bully me off the road. Now anyone who’s seen my car will know I’m not afraid of the odd ding, and I let him through only because I didn’t want to kill him.
It reminds me of long ago when I had a bit of a roadside rant at some biker driving like a tit. The guy and his boyfriend on the back threatened to “slice you, ne” and then proceeded to tailgate me after I pulled away from the traffic lights.
Driving and revving right on my arse I concluded that there was only one thing to do – I slammed on the brakes.
Clearly scooter riders on a big boy motorbike.
It’s a bit worrying that scooter riders are not really bikers. Bikers have a healthy, if grudging, respect for automobiles. They know that an accident will not merely result in a dented fender, but quite possibly their death.
When I was a youth, we thought of scooters as a means of transport for old people and schoolgirls. No self-respecting manly man would totter around on one. We rode real motorbikes, albeit 50cc 2-stroke toys, but you rode them like Clint Eastwood rode a horse, not like your auntie sat having a wee.
Obviously teenage macho bullshit; insecure, immature nonsense.
We all rode like cowboys; tempting Fate and facing Death at every opportunity. That’s what cowboys do.
Like our big boy bikes back then, scooters are even more of a fashion accessory, ridden by trendy metrosexuals and emos, and occasionally by people living in the city who know it’s just simply an easier way to get around.
So before you climb into your made-to-look-vintage Che t-shirt and climb onto your can’t-be-comfy-in-skinny-emo-jeans scoot-scoot realise that we all look back on fashion and remember it as being embarrassingly ridiculous.
I suppose that’s also our right.
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