Remember from high school when you'd be walking down the hall to your next class and the person in front of you just stopped moving forward? What was so annoying about it wasn't that you ran into them but their indignance at your not having read their mind.
Years later, these same people have somehow earned licenses and been allowed to control multi-ton vehicles capable of traveling at high speed and equipped with brakes that slow them down with equal ease.
What did I do back in high school? I learned to recognize the behaviors and signs of people who had a tendency to pay little attention to the world around them and planned appropriately.
There are the stoppers who suddenly decide that they need to talk to their friend or check their bookbag. If I'm walking behind one, I stay slightly to one side (usually non-locker side) and watch for oncoming pedestrian traffic. When that person makes his sudden stop, I'm ready to just ease around, turning sideways a bit to slide through if necessary.
Also, there are the flailers who don't know what they want and just turn and move abruptly. Maybe they just noticed a friend they wanted to talk to, but after tapping him on the shoulder, decided that was enough and tried to continue on after you've already tried to step past. These, you got to know because they'd wander back and forth as if drunk while meandering toward their eventual destination. Their attention is constantly darting to and fro like a nervous bird. With these people, I made sure to get around them and to do it quickly. If I didn't, they were prone to plowing directly into me after I'd thought I had safely passed them.
The speeders were an interesting if small subset in the hallways. They tended to have heavy backpacks and treated the passing periods like a World Rally Challenge. They also tended to have pretty good grades, but that's neither here nor there. The speeders would aim for any small gap between people that they thought they could fit through (forgetting the extra mass and volume of their overstuff backpacks) and move jerkily through the crowded halls. Due to their almost hilarious levels of coordination, these movements were often met with collision and the inevitable fall to the floor. Everyone would stand around and stare for a few seconds before going about their business, letting the humiliated individual gather up the books they couldn't fit into their bookbag. I looked out for the speeders and helped them make it through whatever gap I thought they were looking for to avoid being the one to send them to the floor.
So who are all those crazy nuts on the road threatening your life with their cars? You used to be confounded by them in the hallways of your adolescence. You just never learned how to deal with them which is why they still bother you now. Understand where they come from and you're better armed for the daily drive.
Posted by argyle at February 8, 2005 11:02 PM