Logical reasoning and common sense are usually great help in everyday life but this morning an event suggested me that it doesn’t apply to everyone. The three following statements definitely apply to my way of thinking but I was proven wrong:
- Approaching a car in a in a road rage can be anything between very dangerous to lethal. Any body, regardless their shape, size and background can hold weapons of any kind in a car.
- When I see a man from behind and his bald head seems to be linked directly with his trapezoids (muscles above the shoulders) without any neck, e.g. like Mike Tyson in the good old days, I would avoid fighting him unless I am attacked first. I cannot see any good reason to approach aggressively a similar looking person, whatever he has done on the road.
- Early morning at 6:30, when traffic in a small city like Cambridge is nearly inexistent, is so it’s unlikely to cause good reasons for arguments.
This morning at 6:30 I was travelling toward my usual Wednesday business breakfast meeting when I stopped, on a dual carriage way bridge, at the red light behind another car. In the other lane I saw stopping a Ford Focus with a big guy in it and a couple of seconds later a Vauxall Vectra stopped behind. Nothing wrong until the driver of the Vectra rushed out of his vehicle run the few metres to approach the other car and slamming a big slap on the side window at the driver side shouted “what the f%&k are you doing?”. This person is in his late fifties to sixties, long haired and slim, wearing shirt, tie and suit trousers: I was between surprised and astonished about the whole scene.
At that point I see the big guy turning quite calmly toward his window that he is lowering while he is saying something I could obviously did not hear. I also noticed a little baton, perhaps a kid’s baseball bat in his hands: he was probably suggesting the older man to get away or risking troubles. To be honest, given the size of the bald man the older driver could have had enough problems evev without a weapon. Nonetheless the older guy shouted a few more obscenities until I saw the big driver swinging the baton out of his window.
At the point the light turned green, I started moving forward with my car and the Focus’ driver did the same: nothing really happened but the old guy could have spent his morning at the hospital if the big guy decided to get out of his vehicle.
Now, I even like to believe there have been good reasons for this to happen but once more I am convinced, as I wrote recently, that a bit of common sense sometime would avoid lots of troubles.