The license to drive shopping carts

I'm a good driver. More tranquil now, still feisty though. Meditation has been a good help in this field, but everyone else, that seem to be meditating while driving, aren't always cooperating with me...

This post may be misunderstood, but I'm going to take the risk.

I'm a good driver, I was saying. I've always tended to drive in velocities above those the law requires. Especially, within the city... Now I'm calmer, more aware of the risks. Also, I've always thought that, like they do for over speeding, people should get tickets for under speeding. I do believe that people who drive under certain speed have a tendency of causing more accidents than the ones who drive fast... but I'm certainly wrong!

I've been wanting for some time, to have some signs in my car that I could put out like: "The flasher???!!!!", "More to the right lane!", "The speed limit is 80, not 30!", "Booby!", but also, that one that can be rare, in all times of the yeas, "Nice! Finally, someone who can drive!!”

I'm a good driver. Even for shopping carts. Even those who seem to have a mind of its own. Which are most of them. I'm a good driver, but 90% of the people I come across are not!

And I swear that I to understand why this happens. Some because they are alder people and lost reflexes, others younger and are still green and getting used to it, others can be just distracted - that is if we can give ourselves that luxury when driving - and others may be having a sad day, or a bad one or a great one and are just minding their own business... Everyone is "minding their own business" and that's where the problem starts.

When I drive, I pay attention to what surrounds me, I try to anticipate other's movements, even if there are some unexpected ones, bold ones, surprising... I try to pay more attention to others. I "mind their business". And when I go "minding their business" and that simmers, the absence of civility that is shown, the way people drive like they're the only ones in the road, in the world, in life, I think about their days. And then I jump to supermarkets.

I don't enjoy going to supermarkets. Only when they're empty. It tires me to walk around corridors like a pilgrim, behind people with eyes lost in shelves, looking for nothing. Slaloming through people who look like posts and carts that block every exit, not to mention those who seem to have a certain attraction to people's ankles...

Or those who, although still without explanation, stand close to mine in checkout queues...As if that makes it faster for them to get there...

The lack of civility and care drives me out of my mind... I remember how they fill their mouths with the word freedom, but only for rights, because duties...those are for others.

Pedestrians in crosswalks, and even out of them, are also a good example. Sometimes I want to stop my car and ask them if they drive. If when they drive they forget they are also pedestrians and vice versa...

One of these days, in a conversation about this subject, a friend told me about the Article 101 — Crossing the carriageway.

And it states:

1 - Pedestrians shall not cross the carriageway without firstly making sure that, in consideration of the distance separating them from the vehicles that transit in it and their speed, they are able to do it safely. (coldly, who ends up hurt are not the drivers... the conscious ones, end up with a messed-up life with that weight on their conscience, even though, a lot of times - not all - it is not their fault)

2 - The crossing of the carriageway should be made the fastest possible. (it is made for crossing, not for parading)

3 - Pedestrians can only cross the carriageway when it is properly marked, or if there is none for that effect in 50m, perpendicularly to the axis of the carriageway. (hum-hum!)

4 - Pedestrians should not stop in the carriageway or use the sidewalks or berms in a way that will impair or disturb traffic. (Therefore, chats close to a crossway can be as good as the ones that take place at the end of an escalator!)

5 - Those who violate the provisions of the last previous numbers will be sanctioned with a fine of (euro) 10 up to (euro) 50. (hum-hum!)

I've always been a believer that being in a possession of a licence was not directly associated with IQ - 1 steering wheel, 3 pedals (or even just 2!) and 1 gearbox, it's not too much to ask of our thousands of neurons... Now I'm sure, if it is not, it should be. To the IQ and EQ, they should be evaluated just before what I would call screening. Tests that would help us understand how could a person get a license and what that person would do would it, in which moulds. (And all this applies to pedestrians!) It would begin, obviously, in a supermarket. With simple and defined roots, with obstacles and some reaction tasks. Those who wouldn't pass the basics, would save the money they would spend in their licenses. They would be able to spend it however they want, but only with the little baskets... To use the carts, they would have to go and repeat the "screening".

Those who pass would go on to take their licenses, which could be perfected in some cases. In other words, we'd have to win the points that now they want to take away.

From here on I don't really have it structured, mainly because it is not worth it to lose time thinking about this stuff...because...well, you know why, right?

Well, but from that screening, people would be classified as domingueiros*, for example. The question is, how would those domingueiros drive during the week... But I'm sure we wouldn't have traffic in Lisbon. Certainly, we wouldn't have driving schools because the instructors would have failed, but the best part of all is that when I got to the supermarket, there would always carts!

*Domingueiros, also known as Sunday drivers, are really slow drivers. Snail speed, get it?

#tippingpoint #lisbon #traffic #suoermarket #blog