Jaywalkers: Why you no common sense?

I am planning to do the Saddlesore soon. For those who don’t know it, Saddlesore is a self-imposed challenge, where a biker rides 1000 miles (~1610 kms), in 24 hours. You get nothing much except a butt-load of dead bugs, a certificate from Iron Butt Association, and respect from other riders. I have ridden 1000 kms a day in the past, and spent more than 17 hours on the saddle. Yes it will be a bit hard, but that’s not what my main concern is.

I am scared because Indian roads are highways to hell, literally. When a confused, adorable dog will get squished under your front wheel, sending you flying 10 feet in the air, hitting the ground, and rolling like a rag doll for 100 odd meters, your and the dog’s horrible death will render you ineligible for anything but the glowing fires of eternal damnation. 

But you know what, dogs are animals, you can’t expect shit from them. What I am here to talk about today are humans, stupid, ignorant, motherfucking humans who really don’t deserve to be enjoying the fruits of life. Today we’ll talk about Jaywalkers, and why these inexcusable lumps of solid crap wander on our streets.

The road doesn’t belong to you you jaywalking son of satan

The road doesn’t belong to you if you own a Bugatti Veyron. The road doesn’t belong to you if you own a MTT Y2K. The road doesn’t belong to a cyclist, a jogger, no one. When anyone behaves like it does, there is trouble. Jaywalkers seem to believe that there should be no roads, just vast expanses of fresh green grass, on which they can keep walking till their time runs out.

Jaywalkers also strongly believe that roads are alien creations, along with cars, bikes, and anything that isn’t “human” powered. So in an attempt to exercise their right to protest, they imagine that none of these extra-terrestrial objects exist, and walk like Adam and Eve did in the garden of Eden.

Look before you jump

As a kid, one the earliest things I remember being taught is to look both sides before crossing a road, I mean even before ABC and all the other useless stuff. Do jaywalkers come from some other universe with no common sense? Do they pass through a membrane from another dimension where schools are outlawed?

How hard is it? You just move your neck, look left, look right, and if there isn’t anything that will potentially kill you, you move on. But oh, wait a minute! That’s not the way we do it. We look to the left, then continue looking the left while crossing the road, leaving the people coming from the right to go fuck themselves. They have eyes too right? They can see me and stop. It has nothing to do with me, I am only concerned with the left side.

Ladies love jaywalking

I am not trying to be a sexist here, but in my experience, laides just looooooooooove to walk right across a speeding train, make it derail, then check their makeup, brush their hair, blurt a small and inaudible “Sorry!” and then move onto the expressway. It has something to with that Oh-I-am-so-dumb-and-hence-cute-and-adorable-like-a-dog logic.

I live right across a Mumbai local railway station. Every few minutes the road is covered with people crossing over, like waves on a beach. Most of these people look around and walk through like normal people, but there is always one moron who is looking in the wrong direction and never stops going. More often than not, I am not kidding, this moron is a woman.

Get your head out of your shitty smartphone

How many times have you seen this? A guy perfectly dressed for a gay pride rally, with skinny low waist, orange-colored jeans, I-am-in-Hawaii T-shirt and cowboy-bangs-Kim Kardashian shoes would be leisurely walking across a busy intersection. This idiot will have headphones on, so he can’t hear a jet plane landing in front of him. His eyes will be shoved inside his phone screen, so he can’t see if Jesus would triple backflip in front of him.

You keep coming closer to this “dude”, honking away, hoping he would get out of his virtual world. But no! That shit ain’t happening. Finally when your front tire is halfway up his ass, he takes notice, frowns at your impunity, gets back to his smartphone and moves away. In situations like this, I really hope my bike had sharp swords attached to the front and rear axles. Then walking among these half-dead imbeciles would be fun.

Sometimes people make bad decisions, I have too. You think you will be able to make that crossing, but the car is coming in too hot and you end up in an awkward situation. That’s not jaywalking, that’s just God fucking with you for fun. Jaywalking is when you knowingly engage in stupid behavior, only to piss off other people. It is a fairly common occurrence, throughout the world. It is so dangerous in India because there is already so much for a biker to handle, that a jaywalker acts as the last nail in the proverbial coffin.

So give other people a break, act like they exist, and give them some importance that they deserve. Don’t be a self-important moron, because sooner or later one moron is taken down by some other moron, or a non-moron who is tired of other morons, we have plenty of all kind on this planet.