Monday, September 26, 2005
Dark Humor or Cynical Humanity
Nothing has changed in
In
These accounts are firsthand eyewitness reports, drawn up from various sources, but you can imagine how quickly these incidents sparked an upward cultural shift for drivers in
In
You could almost laugh at the biting sense of irony.
Here are some headlines from the darkest of such ironies, concerning pedestrians and drivers having very little to do with the hard-working officers of this country.
It was gross, it was sad, and it was pretty damn funny for a moment. Those of you who have heard of rare and dark happenings are probably not surprised by this marvel of Nature. On a pretty normal day, on a pretty normal highway (The Tehran-Karaj Autobahn) a young man in his white pride hits a “pedestrian” who decided to cross the highway. For those of you fellow Americans who can’t imagine J-Walking in your otherwise nicely suburban neighborhoods, try visualizing this on an Interstate with cars going…hmmm…120-140 Km/h (that would be probably around 90/100 Mi/h!) Shiiiieeeeeettt. The driver ran from the scene, unaware that the dumb, and apparently dead, pedestrian was caught on the roof of his car by his clothes. 10 minutes later the Pride was caught by policemen, and taken away.
Our second headline came sometime ago, on a pretty normal day, on a pretty normal highway (again, the Tehran-Karaj Autobahn) Because of Tehran’s heavy outgoing and ingoing traffic, it gets quite hot trying to control them, let alone the big-rigs and trucks. One such day, as mentioned above, a big-rig which looks something like a garbage truck but bigger, with nearly 48 inch wheels plows into 5 men, who happened to be doing the Daytona 500 J-Walking Act, as is also mentioned above, killing 3 immediately and injuring the other 2. According to the article that Mr. Taxi-Driver read me, a Pedestrian-Only bridge (which is usually painted BRIGHT RED) was only a few dozen meters away from the accident.
If it is the government’s aim to control the traffic and driving culture of the major cities, it would have to be Ruin, Resolve, Regain.
Ruin is a strong term, but it can be a shock-label for what needs to be done in the higher positions of the government, such as the ranking Officers taking responsibility for the slackness with which this issue is being pursued. According to a Taxi-Driver, “there’s nothing to be done because nobody wants to do it”. One could claim that none of these management issues are affecting the people, but that would be a joke; a below-the-belt one at that.
Resolve is to push those responsible to either step down or push up their sleeves and get to work. They aren’t getting paid to sit on their asses, are they? In order to try and create this new law-abiding system, they’ll need to build a good foundation; communications and leadership. These qualities in any of the ranking officers will make strong effect on both the lower officers and the cause which people and money would gladly rally behind.
Regain is when the biggest urban project of Iranian history would begin. Not only does the culture of traffic and driving change the image of the capital and other major cities, it opens doors for a great new sphere of administration in terms of urban construction. Taking back what has been slowly deteriorating the health of city-dwellers and
If you think of any thing to add, or have your own completely different thought or project pertaining to this, you can let me know with a link or a message. It was very easy writing this because I’m not the one with the details, at least not yet, and neither are they. This is good enough at the moment, even if I wish it weren’t so.
Most people could challenge the decisions that some administrators and some Mayors have made over these years, but the point is to show where they can improve as well as stripping it down to the nitty gritty for all to see. I didn’t think this article was nitty or even gritty, it was merely a little bit of dust in the eye.
You could probably go on for me, but I need some rest, before doing some more brain hacking. One could almost say that, this issue is impossible to R&R&R, for obvious reasons, you know?
Huh.
