Wacky Notions that struck me on my way home yesterday...

Wacky Notion #1: When driving one's car along a busy road during rush hour, perhaps it would be wise to observe the TRAFFIC signals more and the PEDESTRIAN signals a tad less... particularly from the centre lane where pedestrians are considerably less likely to suddenly appear in front of the vehicle.

As I was driving home from the subway yesterday, in the centre lane of 3 lanes headed in the direction I was travelling, the car in front of me suddenly stopped. This confused me. The light was green. There was no vehicle in front of him and plenty of space on the other side to clear the intersection. Why did he stop? Because the pedestrian signal about 15 feet to our right changed from 'walk' to 'don't walk' (well, graphical depictions generally interpreted in that manner). Dude! Are you carrying your car? Are you living in Bedrock and your car works on foot-power? The light for VEHICULAR traffic is GREEN!!!!

Wacky Notion #2: When the sole custodian of a child whose mother likely still measures his age in months (i.e. under the age of 2 years), perhaps the wisest course of action would be to pay less attention to scrolling through emails on your Blackberry and more attention to stopping the child from wandering out into traffic. Again.

I kid you not. I left the office yesterday and watched a man in his 60's so engrossed in scrolling through emails on his Blackberry that the toddler in his care actually got about 10 feet away from him, paused at the curb, stepped down, and started out across the street. I gasped. Loudly. I wasn't close enough to do any more. Thankfully, as I gasped, he looked up and hurried to bring the child back to the sidewalk before the car accelerating through the intersection got too close. Unfortunately, he then went right back to his Blackberry and the child made another beeline for the curb. As kids are wont to do. Because now it was a game to get grampa's attention. Yes, that's right... I said grampa. The man in question was, I'd guess, in his 60's. Definitely "old enough to know better".

I guess Dad was right... while wisdom does generally come from age (in that it's most often gleaned from experience), advanced age does not necessarily indicate heightened wisdom.