Some People Change When They Get Behind the Wheel

I never was a particularly adept middle-to-long distance runner, although in the end that seems to be the sport I took to for much of my life, especially for the last ten years.  When I was growing up, I was in fact a pretty ferocious sprinter in high school and did very well in the 50-yard dash...until around the 11th grade when fellow classmates grew up past me.  But one crucial difference that made running the longer distances more attractive to my higher instincts was that it forced me to go out into the world to train...when my natural inclinations were bent toward staying home, safely indoors. And consequently, I got to observe the flow of that world around me, including how people tended to compartmentalize themselves in their motor vehicles...anonymous to the world while I was out there in the open, along with the other runners, pedestrians, and bicyclists.  I noticed that when folks were safely ensconced in their cars, they would sometimes shed the common respect and courtesies they would normally be careful to display were they personally identifiable.  So cars would honk at me for exercising my right-of-way, curses yelled safely from behind windows as they sped by...once someone threw their soft drink at me just to be an [expletive deleted]. And I've experienced eggs, glass beer bottles, and even a firecracker thrown at me while riding my bicycle on different occasions.  This dichotomy between the insulated and unaccountable masses and the vulnerable few (like me) came to influence my view of the world and human nature...

For most of us, we slip in and out of situations where we are traveling in motor vehicles and walking, running, or bicycling.  Yet a few don't have that option: for various reasons, someone may be forced to walk or bike to wherever they need to go...many others have to take public transit and spend much of their time walking to and from bus stops.  But in a city like Gainesville, the traffic is weighed very heavily in favor of road travel, and pedestrians are often overlooked as drivers allow themselves to get distracted by their various gadgets that they like to play with when they should be paying attention to where they are going.  The other day, Tommy, a middle-aged man whom people in this area had come to know well and who due to his life circumstances had to resort to walking to get where he wanted to go, was crossing NW 39th Avenue from his home, just across from where I am sitting here in this Starbucks.  A car was switching lanes and took no notice of the pedestrian stepping out onto the pavement and struck him, killing him.  Now there is one of those sad flowery memorial displays at the site to remind us...or at least try to remind us...to please look out for people and not just take the narrow view of the vehicles around us when we drive.  But I look back at the conclusions I drew from running roadside way back then in the 1970s and I know it's all probably an exercise in futility: some people just go through an ugly metamorphosis whenever they get behind the wheel.  I don't know the exact details of what the driver who hit Tommy was thinking or doing...or even whether Tommy may have stepped out too soon...but I have had too many personal experiences over the years with drivers who imperiled my life with their distracted or aggressive driving and others who harassed me while I was out there walking, running, or bicycling.  Yet if I encountered any of the same people in a store or restaurant...in person...I'm confident that they would all be on their best behavior...