Is this invisible? I didn’t think so.

Driving While Homicidal

What is wrong with people? The same kinds of people who blame posters on Reddit for not realizing their dog could suffocate in a potato chip bag routinely engage in painfully obvious potentially murderous driving behaviour. 

Monday I was at a Developmental Trauma education day to learn more about the ways I and most of the people I know are really fucked. During my drive home I repeatedly noticed drivers staring down and texting as they drove. Illegal? Yep. Stupid? Hell yeah! So much for any kid or critter who wanders onto the road. I witnessed a few near misses for fender benders.

Tuesday I was biking to work from physio along Lyon St. when I saw a blue car parked in the semi-segregated bike lane. It’s only separated by some flimsy blue and white markers so it’s.    not really protected. I was annoyed at the driver who I assumed to be the woman standing near the front of the car with a stunned look on her face, especially since I had to edge out into traffic to pass her. As I passed I noticed a small crowd in front of the car gathering around a young man lying in the middle of the bike lane. There was blood all over and around his head and someone was holding a white cloth around it. A woman was on a phone saying something about convulsions and there was a guy in an Ottawa By-Law uniform with a first aid kit. There didn’t seem to be a role for me and a bystander was the last thing they needed so I slowly pedalled on. 

It was only when I pulled into work on my bike that the enormity hit me. That was a young man who likely had a head injury, at the least. Some family members would get a call that would change their lives. I don’t know who was at fault but the driver’s life would be different now as well.

I went into work shaking and crying and full of jangly unhelpful adrenaline. Fortunately I stumbled into a very supportive group who helped me get it together to get through my work day. Every time I paused, though, his pale, bloody face and the streams of blood on the sidewalk intruded forcefully into my mind. I couldn’t be at home alone that evening and I couldn’t find someone to entertain me so I took myself off to a movie to put new images in my head.

Then this morning I was out dragging the wiener dog through the neighbour’s underbrush when a truck went straight through the intersection picking up speed as it went by the STOP sign. I imagined flinging a bag of dog poop at him, except my pooper had not yet produced one.

 On my walk home a bicycle flew down the hill at high speed past me on the sidewalk, missing me by inches. If I had moved a bit to one side, as pedestrians are wont to do, my clock would have been well cleaned. 

What does it take to change people’s careless behaviour? Do they think bad things can’t happen to them? Most adults should know better than that by now. Does it take injuring or killing someone to make one person’s driving behaviour change? Would that even do it? All I know is it’s not safe in a car, on a bike or standing on a sidewalk.