Strike a Pose

Some of you may recall earlier in this space an exposé on my distaste for sidewalk meanderers. These feelings haven’t changed; if anything, a year living in a big city only further accentuated just how much these people need to be stopped. However, I recently departed my former palace in Boston’s North End in favor of the delightfully pretentious city of Cambridge in an attempt to restore a modicum of sanity to my everyday life.
Perhaps, I thought, my days of despising pedestrians were behind me. I was, after all, joining my kind of people: self-important, poorly dressed, and enamored of smug cultural buzzwords (e.g., “sustainable”). However, while I have only been in the neighborhood for just over a week, I have discovered that an equally dislikable monster roams the Cambridge streets: the crosswalk stiff armer.

Cambridge is, as anyone who lives there will constantly remind you, a very people-friendly city. Ample trees, bike lanes, and crosswalks are interspersed within the city’s many busy roads, which makes it a place best navigated on foot. While this is great for the Earth, it also cultivates a sickening sense of entitlement in all pedestrians as they dart in and out of traffic with impunity. They want all drivers to know that they, in fact, own the road.
The stiff-armer is the worst of these offenders. Not content with simply crossing and assuming an oncoming driver will quickly stop to avoid hitting them and doing jail time, the stiff-armer actually takes things a step further. She* will actually slow down in the crosswalk, throw up her hand as if she were striking a Heisman pose, and try to stare you down. Oftentimes, she has wandered out into the crosswalk before you have showed any intention of stopping. She simply doesn’t care.
*I’m not in any way attempting to be progressive here by eschewing the typical “he” pronoun. Call me sexist, but this person is usually a woman. Sorry ladies.

The concept of pedestrians having the right of way doesn’t bother me. What bothers me about these people is their attitude. They need to learn a little respect for the 2000+ pound piece of metal that is hurtling towards them. If they miscalculate their move into the sidewalk, they’re dead. That’s a fact.
This lack of appreciation for the power of cars is deeply disturbing, but it is ultimately the fault of we drivers who have tacitly allowed it to develop. Like a group of enabling friends, we have stood idly be as these people’s behavior has spiraled out of control, slowly losing our grip on the rules that brought peace and order to our roads. The time has come for an intervention.

While I would never advocate committing a crime, it’s time for the drivers to fight back. Next time you are driving, if someone tries to throw up the stiff arm, give them a little nudge, show them who’s boss. A stiff arm barely works against Ray Lewis; I’m going to guess that it is not going to work too well against a moving vehicle. I was always taught in school that when trying to explain something one should “show, don’t tell.” Is there any better way to “show” someone who is in charge than via a lovetap from your front bumper?