From the e-mailbag:
Subject: I will hit your car
Dear Seattle Drivers,
If you speed up and your car is mere inches from my knees, trust me, I will knee your car. If you try to fly through a crosswalk I’m about to step into and you then stop in front of me to look both ways, whatever’s in my hand is going to meet your car’s side door, trunk, what have you. You do not have the right of way, and if more people started walking the streets armed with pedestrian-protection devices, you might think twice before putting our lives in danger. You see a pedestrian, you stop. You can wait the extra 10 seconds. We however, may not survive your impatience.
Sincerely,
Aggravated SeaTown Pedestrian
“Adrenalin provokes those kinds of responses”
What, the adrenalin of sitting at a computer and shaking your fist at your mythical oppressors?
Cars = the one way stupid, young, privileged white kids can feel oppressed until, that is they can afford a car.
Two DUIs? Sounds like the problem is weak sentencing laws. I think anyone driving with no insurance or without a current license or a DUI should be jailed. Can you imagine how many po’ people being strict like that would affect? You can kids have the unisured Mexicans Off the road.
This is the other use of umbrellas – stick it out in front of you (instead of your knee or hand), cars will stop. $10 umbrella :1 vs $30K car: 0
You could kick half the uninsured Mexicans Off the road and all those other people who fail to pay tickets and get their licenses suspended.
@97.
Ask the same question of people who run across the street (not a crosswalk) in the middle of traffic, day or night, and also to the cyclists who ignore stop signs and blow through red lights and crosswalks. Thank you.
@89, dear friend, you get the gold star for hyperbolic analogy. Because I drive I am now a guy with a gun on his forehead who apparently pays some stranger to tickle my nose with feathers while I’m sleepy and talking on a cell phone, and I’ve already shot several people. I think you diagnosed the wrong slogger with delirium.
All participants are using the road. All the participants must obey laws that apply to their use of the road. All participants should also follow basic rules of common sense, respect, and self-preservation. Your tone and arguments suggest that the only person who could ever be accountable for an accident is the person driving the car. No matter what? Your last post puts forth an argument that means every driver is guilty of reckless endangerment just by driving in the first place. Do I have to waste time explaining who silly that is?
And apparently the drivers don’t ever prevent accidents when peds or cyclists don’t pay attention–totally never could happen. That must be one of my delirious imaginings.
I said it above, but I’ll repeat it. Drivers can by reckless and so can peds and cyclists. All the above can also be careful and help each other out. It’s just only the drivers and their cars that get worked over by The Stranger–again and again and again.
I thought I was the only one who banged on cars.
Cars in crosswalks get a touch or a tap. Cars that are moving get a slap.
I’ve been doing this for, hmmm, 23 years. Have managed to avoid real fights though there have been many near ones. It helps to be big.
” It’s just only the drivers and their cars that get worked over by The Stranger–again and again and again.”
It’s a form of faux- class envy by entitled white dipshits who have just discovered life as a barista or working at some dead end social services agency or alt city paper will never pay more than $20k a year so railing against car owners is the best way to vent at their poor life choices.
They are, fauxhemians. I should know, I used to be one. Then I got a life and enough money for a couple of cars, bikes, motorcycles and detached house in Seattle and stopped railing against white privileged but decided to lie back and enjoy it.
Stop whining douche bag. It’s impossible to turn right in this city with all of you fucking walkers taking your sweet time to cross the street. I’ll run your ass over.
How easy is it to hit a car with a limp wrist boys?
Wow – all you lucky people in areas that are generally ped friendly! I wish we had things close enough to walk to/from ^_^
Almost getting hit a couple times as both a ped and cyclist has taught me to be very careful when crossing and to be alert for those issues as a driver. It’s really not that hard, and at a certain point, hitting someone else will REALLY make me late!
Rev the engine while I’m crossing a 4-way stop at a brisk walk and I WILL slow down as I look right at you and smile. Taking turns is something we were supposed to learn in kindergarten, and I don’t negotiate with terrorists.
32/BostonFontSnob: I visit Seattle almost every year for PAX and I can’t believe how you people always wait for a walk signal even if there’s no traffic in sight. Here, it’s a goddamn free-for all. We just wander into traffic like we don’t give a shit.
If there’s no traffic in sight, I always cross the street (and in over 30 years in Seattle have never gotten a Seattle nanny-state jaywalking ticket.) And that’s one of the many things I love about your city.
I loved being a pedestrian in Rome. It was fun. Cars look like they’re going to run you down but once you start walking across the street, at any point, they’ll slow down for you.
Also please DON’T leave your hypersensitive car alarm on when parking overnight in neighborhoods where people sleep. That way I won’t have to rub my feces all over your door handle. Thanks!! ^_^