I was in traffic the other day when, at the traffic lights, I heard prolonged honking. A guy gets out of a van and walks up to the driver in front of him and starts swearing with all the dirty expressions and words he had learned. It was all around this person’s most important organ (and no, it wasn’t the brain, it wasn’t the heart). Out of the other car stepped a gentleman in his 60s with white hair, who looked shocked to see if he had done anything to attract such a display. No, he hadn’t. He wasn’t driving aggressively enough for the man behind him, who accused him of sleeping instead of driving and not running the yellow light, which had prevented him from running the red (as some do, slick, of course). The white-haired gentleman said nothing, he walked back to his car. This infuriated the 30-something bully, who started swearing worse.
The scene shocked me. Most of us get angry behind the wheel, me being one of them. I also comment in the car, to myself. But from here to going out and swearing at someone, yelling at them, and cursing, is a heaven to earth distance.
I’ve been thinking about how we can behave like this. Only the fact that the gentleman was older should have made that driver restrain himself. Actually, it wasn’t just that. A modicum of decency is good to show in any interaction, with any human, regardless of age, gender, race. That’s what I kept hearing at home, from people around me, in the neighborhood where I grew up. But sure, it was a different time, with different benchmarks.
Decency means behaving as good manners demand, reverently.
I’m afraid we’re in an age where many feel entitled to sling mud at others, show disrespect, swear, yell or whatever
Perhaps it would be an idea for such a display to be penalised with points, just as I understand we are penalised if we honk the wrong horn at a green light.
By the way, I’ve seen that people are more temperate at traffic lights for a while now.