It can't just be me. Have you noticed the increase in the number of times people walk onto the road in front of your car, knowing full well that you will be forced to stop?
Time and again, particularly in the city centre of Aberdeen, when turning off or on to Union Street, pedestrians approaching the edge of the pavement see you coming in your car, but rather than stop at the kerb and let you pass, they deliberately walk in front of your car, forcing you to brake so as not to interrupt their stride.
This is an outrage. Everyone was surely taught the Green Cross Code at school. Everyone surely knows that cars have right of way on the road, and pedestrians on the pavement. To blatantly step in front of moving cars, thereby forcing cars to brake is wholly unfair on car drivers. It is certainly not a pleasant experience for the driver.
I am not saying car drivers shouldn't be careful. Of course they should. I myself have accidentally stepped in front of traffic and am grateful that the drivers were driving with full attention and due consideration and braked.
However this is not the type of behaviour I am describing here. What you see nowadays is defiance from some pedestrians who seem determined to infuriate car drivers by deliberately walking in front of them. In fact, some pedestrians I have noted, deliberately slow down their walking when they realise they are holding you up.
Perhaps the type of pedestrians that do this are climate change protesters who have a grudge against car drivers.
Or I could be conciliatory and think that maybe they are so lost in their music in their headphones that they are not aware of cars coming. Not that that makes it right.
However, personally I believe that this type of behaviour is most likely the symptom of an over-liberal society where the latest generations believe that they have the right to do whatever suits them, who have no respect for rules, codes of conduct or good manners, and no-one is going to tell them how to behave or that they have to defer to another person.
Deference is certainly one of the casualties of today's liberal, please yourself society. So sad.
