Sunday, January 15, 2012

STOP

Stop.

Do you know what this says?  Let me give you a clue...



OK. Now do you know?
"Stop: To halt the motion or progress of..."  (Online dictionary)

It doesn't say "Pause" nor does it say "Yield".

We have a 4-Way Stop Street up the road from us and everyday, almost without fail, I am witness to people who clearly can't read this word.

Yesterday My Man had had enough. He had stopped at the Stop Street while another car had stopped to his right as well. My Man waited his turn and let the car go - however the car behind the car moving on decided he wasn't going to stop and wait, but would go through straight after the car ahead of him. My Man in the meantime had begun moving when he realised that the other car was going to take the gap. He stopped in the middle of the road and politely motioned to the guy to please go back and Stop to let him go and wait for his turn. The guy had no option but to do as he had been asked, at which point My Man continued his journey.

What made My Man so angry was that the guy had a car full of pre-teens and the example he was setting was not only shocking, but he was endangering their lives.

I feel like a real old lady even blogging about this - but I do find it very disturbing that the most basic of road safety rules are just completely ignored and then all choas breaks loose when someone is hurt, or worse, killed.

We have had the most horrific road accidents over this Christmas period and when I hear how they happened, it appears that 90% of them could have been avoided if people had kept the most basic of laws.

We only have one life and anyone taken too soon is a member of a family who loves them.

Drive safely people.
Life is precious.

5 comments:

  1. Allie says:
    I couldnt agree more
    Bravo zulu to The Man!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, it is not Stoptional.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Next time readers want to scream at a taxi driver, scourge that they are, they should take a moment to consider how many times they themselves violate traffic laws and common courtesies on what should be safe and quiet streets.

    When I see increasingly poor and what I would call aggressive driving through our suburbs and around our schools, I have to ask myself whether one would honestly pass a driving test again if we were to be observed driving with a flagrant disregard for the rules of the road.

    ‘Aggressive driving’ includes exceeding the speed limit, gliding through stop streets, not applying the intersection ‘first-in-first-out’ rule, shooting red traffic lights, cutting into car queues, weaving through traffic.

    If you are doing any of the above you are making our (your) streets less safe for our children, pedestrians, cyclists, other drivers. You are contributing to higher speeds, more aggression, and more noise.

    Just by stopping at Stop signs until you need to change to 1st gear to pull off, as our laws require, you will create a domino effect behind you slowing several cars down to a reasonable pace. Go on, you can do it, they’re not Stoptional.

    Go on, do your bit to Lead SA, and show our taxi drivers how it is done.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for this - and you are so right about aggressive driving. I want to add to your list the stupidity of overtaking on a solid line which I see others doing often - even over a mountain pass. It's ridiculous.

      Delete

So, what do you think?

Reverse Culture Shock & Difficult Questions

The days are moving on and soon we will be home home. There seems to be a common thought coming through from friends there and here - Prepar...