Last weekend (I think) I caught a glimpse of a news report stating that Montreal Police were cracking down on jaywalkers. Now, I know they’ve upped their attacks on speeding with the number of radar traps around town at an incredible high, but that’s understandable. Something about summer weather that makes people’s feet heavy on the pedals… 🙂
Still, anyone who’s spent any time in montreal knows that for the citizens here, red lights or intersections are really more like “suggestions” to pedestrians. Thus, the idea of ticketing jaywalkers is tough to swallow. We literally can’t stop our bodies from lunging across a street if there are no cars coming.
However, something clicked for me on Monday. I was walking back to work after a nice lunch meetup with an old friend and I found myself stopped at a red light. The news report flashed through my head but so did something else: what does crossing give me? What gain is there to my life?
If I were to cross, what could happen? Well, I could get hit by a car I didn’t see at the moment (regardless of years of experience, if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s the stupidity of drivers… “other” drivers, of course 🙂 ). Secondly, I could be seen by a cop and given a ticket.
Now, I asked myself, what was this for? Would it “get me to the church on time” or something as equally important? Nope. I’d be crossing the street, possibly gaining a minute on my travel, just to get back to the office? Huh? Was that worth a possible accident or throwing away money I don’t have? Definitely not.
So, I stayed on the sidewalk, waiting for the lights to change to green, while enjoying the music coming through my mp3 player. And you know what? I actually enjoyed my walk and my lunchtime a bit more. Wow. An unexpected gain.
You can imagine how much of a freak I felt, though… 🙂