As I often do I walked home through Harehills (Leeds) recently. Cars pull out without indicating, yellow hatched areas, bus lanes, no right or left turn signs are routinely ignored and people wander across the road within a few feet of pedestrian crossings. Outside the takeaway shops cars just pull onto the footpath – so you can be walking up a footpath 8 feet wide to find a car 7 feet wide just sat there in the middle of it. It might then zoom off towards you before spinning out into the stream of traffic just missing various pedestrians who were outrageously attempting to walk on the footpath.
I nearly had a go at one driver today but last time I did that some nut job (I guess that's an American term but I like it so I'm using it!) was outraged and threatening violence. He explained that he had had to drive down the path because the kerb was too big for him to mount in the place where he’d wanted to drive onto the footpath - he wanted me to be grateful for the fact that he was driving along the footpath quite slowly! Yes he was a nutter, but this victory of driver rights over everyone else’s rights is so ingrained that it never even seems to occur to people that driving on the path is a bad thing to do. If I began to stroll down the middle of the road I’d soon be told I was doing something wrong. And you still get the Clarksons of this world whining that there are people in power out to get them. If only!
Hey, here's a song!
http://wholeskymonitor.bandcamp.com/track/harehills-chapeltown
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