Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Accidents Claim, Bodies Count
Accidents Claim, Bodies Count
It’s harsh after having lived in
Yesterday evening, at the crosswalk, I was minding my own business, keeping my eyes from staring too much and from looking lost, when suddenly a beastly yell pulled me out of my existence. A young man, as I saw it, was hit by a car right as he tried to jump out of the way, and what I saw was his body pushed into the air and then landing smack-dab by the car’s left side. Before you could say Jack-Daniels the young man was kicking the car and screaming things I couldn’t understand. Of course, the car that hit him, two young men driving, wouldn’t stop, and after the initial shock took off up the boulevard.
The strangest part, through this road rage, was that the young man who was hit chased the tail of the car on foot, and suddenly stopped because he knew he couldn’t catch up. Right then, out of the blue, a Paykan, poor driver, hits the guy on a screeching halt and knocks him to the floor again. Fortunately he got up, but unfortunately, in his adrenaline rush, he got onto a motorcycle and with a few other young men and motorbikes they rushed after the first car, leaving the shaken old man in his Paykan…
I fear the adrenaline that comes after more than I do the initial accident. Accidents are inevitable, but what happens afterwards is scary. I know enough to say that after these accidents things happen far worse than being scraped off the cement.
A man is fighting with another man, and their wives, both in chadors (the long, traditional Islamic head-body gear) scratching and cursing each other. I’ve seen women fighting each other, one with her infant child in her arms. The police, the Rahnamai Police, or traffic police, occasionally arrive later, especially if the accident hasn’t claimed any lives or hurt anyone severely. I think it’s too late for the road rage that goes on here. Recently, a neighbor was out driving, a woman, when a young man, trying to tease her closed the gap between them on his motorcycle and revved up his engine. Suddenly, for no reason other than trying to get her attention he grabbed her side-view mirror, and of course, she returning the favor, hit the gas and yanked him forward. The guy was dragged with his bike, but luckily, only his bike was damaged when it rolled under her tires. The brawl that ensued between a few men and the young motorcyclist was horrible. Often times, a woman accusing a man of bothering her or making unasked for advances will get the guy beaten up or chased away by goodwill ambassadors. So, she did it.
Here, the adrenaline rush thing bothered me….it seems reasonable that the sick pervasion of half the male population does get to the women. And it’s their right to defend themselves, but really….almost killing the guy and being proud of it (bleh) was too much to handle. Of course, what she could have done was drive slowly and normally, and honked her horn until he got off, or left her alone. Yet again, it’s the surface, the pride, the arrogance that runs for women and men here. It doesn’t matter that the young man crossing the street was crossing illegally, or that the woman driving was going for intentional second-degree man-slaughter. It’s just a matter of an eye-for-an-eye, a blind way to go about it, I think. They have a right to retaliate, perhaps my neighbor could have let it go, or the young man could have sensibly brought the law into it, but it’s not just the people’s fault, the traffic laws are totally ignored. It’s funny, that laws are broken at all times, by all shapes and sizes, and when they have accidents, the same law is used to indict the offender.
Huh.
