I have had the opportunity to twice conduct anecdotal research on the above mentioned topic. In the first instance, the presence of an ambulance and fire department vehicle at a home in our neighborhood provided a woman the magical ability to cross the street directly in front of my car, without checking traffic, and without being harmed. In the second instance, this time in the evening, a bevy of emergency medical personnel and their vehicles endowed a man with a strikingly similar capacity: namely, he felt permitted to dart across a busy street without checking for traffic. Apparently he’d also been given the super-ability to realize his mistake halfway across the street and smile in an embarrassed fashion.

The conclusion drawn from my research so far is that people have a really dangerous tendency to run into the street without looking whilst they are in the process of coping with an emergency situation. Ironically, everyone else on the road is not aware of or even concerned by said emergency and proceeds along normal behavioral lines (driving in streets) while those in an emergency are haplessly and even dangerously preoccupied by their tragedy. Life has a cruel way of going on despite loss, and the world has a cruel way of being large enough to overlook most of our concerns, even the ones that warrant lights and sirens.

So whether this is an exhortation for more pedestrian safety, or a reflection on the relative futility and smallness of our human concerns in the face of the wider universe, I know not. I do know Andrew’s suggestion worked and apostrophes occur in this post. Thanks.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 1:53 pm and is filed under From the nation of Indig. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.