Can a man (and I really mean male here generally) behave one way when you’re interracting with him person-to-person yet be a bully, a despot on the road when behind his wheel?
I mused about this as I witness the drama unfolding in front of me.
My family and I were enjoying the ice-cream at Udders in Goldhill Centre next to the 3-laned road, Goldhill Plaza. Typical with Singaporeans who want to save on parking fees in land-scarce Singapore, 2 of those lanes although drawn with jagged lines which indicate “Do not park, wait or stop here” were jammed with parked cars leaving only one lane for traffic to crawl through.
Near the mouth of the road leading to Thomson Road, a Merc had just vacated his “parking lot” and a Lexus is trying to move diagonally from the centre lane into the “lot” when he was probably startled by a taxi’s horn. The Lexus moved to the centre lane and his “parking lot” was then quickly taken up by the taxi which was just trying to drive through into Thomson Road. Suddenly the Lexus moved his car diagonally blocking both the centre lane and the right most lane, right in front of the taxi.
When the taxi tried to reverse, the Lexus did the same thing, making sure that his car parrallelled the taxi and when the taxi moved forward, the Lexus duplicated his stunt of moving his car diagonally, blocking both lanes.
Very obviously, he was trying to block the taxi to prevent him moving into Thomson Road.
As the Lexus redid its stunt a few more times, the road by then had become filled with cars trying to move into Thomson Road. Very soon, the road was filled with the chorus of horns all blaring at the Lexus to give way.
We thought that would have been the end of it when we saw the Lexus and the taxi moving into Thomson Road. That is the main road isn’t it? Surely the Lexus would not be so foolhardy to attempt his stunt then, but attempted it again he did. By then, the collective jaws of my family and I had dropped.
We did not quite take note of how that drama ended. Definitely, it is easy to judge that the driver in the Lexus had been so overtaken by anger of the perceived taking over of his jagged-lined indicated “parking lot” he had lost his reason and rationality. Regular instances of how drivers made anonymous by their tinted windshields and windows had exhibited irrational even violent behaviours are shown on our roads.
I wonder, if I were to meet the driver of the Lexus face-to-face, without knowing him as the driver of that particular Lexus, whether I would have formed an impression of him as “genteel”, “humble”, “polite” perhaps even “magnanimous”?
And this is definitely one area in which I am very proud of my SO for. In the 2+ years of sitting in his car, he is the same man, outside of his car and behind the wheel. He will practice defensive driving to protect himself and his car passengers, he will even take strategic measures to prevent road bullies and despots from getting their way, he may even comment “That is very dangerous driving.”, “*sighz* (about a driver who had just shown him the middle finger)”. But so far, he has never cursed any bullying drivers or yelled expletives at them, at least as far as I have witnessed.
In fact in cases where his parking lot was simply taken over by rude drivers when it was obvious he was simply waiting for a car to vacate, he had the magnanimity to simply move on and look for another parking space rather than let his mind obsess over the parking lot he had lost.
Once, we drove past a red sports car where we had noted is just in front of a parking lot in which the originally parked driver is preparing to move out. We of course presume the lot would soon be taken over by the driver of this red sports car. We moved ahead by about another 7-10 parking lots where we soon encountered another car leaving its parking lot. As we were reversing into this (our) lot, the red sports car drove to just behind the parking lot and kept blaring his horn at us. We were really shocked. But without batting an eyelid, my SO drove out of that parking lot and moved to the first lot that appeared to have been missed by this red sports car.
We figured that the driver of the red sports car was so busy keeping his eye on us to make sure that we did not get a lot before his, that he had failed to notice the vacant lot right behind his car.
Although we had lost our “rightful” place, we had a wonderful evening enjoying the beautiful night scenery of Marina Barrage rather than spending our time arguing (or horror of horrors, even fighting?) with the driver of this red sports car.
Moving towards a “Gracious Singapore” was a much-debated issue in parliament a few years ago. Sadly, a few years on, we’re probably even further away from the magnanimity of the (older generationed) Kiwis or the open-minded Americans (well most of the well-cultured ones anyway.))
It is thus a point of reflection whether who we are is shown more by how we show our face to others? Or expressed when we are cloaked and anonymous within our cars?
