blocking traffic

there is a different attitude here. a driver will leave his/her car in the middle of a small road, even though there are parking spaces, because they feel that they will only be a few minutes delivering something or other, and it would be easier to just leave the car there. any car coming down the street from behind, just has to wait. either that or do a very french maneuver which is to back out of the road. the sound of paris to me is the sound of a car accelerating in reverse. you know the sound – when the engine tone just rises and rises? even the parisians curse at the selfishness of the parisian drivers.

our apt is above a small shopping street. it is a narrow one lane, one way. there are often bouts of honking. typically, some delivery truck has ignored the special delivery parking spots lining the street and instead chosen to stop directly in front of its shop blocking all traffic from passing. i am surprised, actually, at the patience sometimes shown by the other drivers who quietly wait. i guess there’s an allowance of 2-3 minutes. this morning, at morning rush hour the honking seemed to be going longer than usual. after about 10 minutes of honking, i poked my head out the window to see what was going on. a truck had decided to park in the INTERSECTION of 2 streets, blocking all traffic from BOTH. there was a delivery space available a very short distance in front, but that didn’t matter. i called jj and p to come watch. it was a big delivery to a clothing store on the corner, so it was a long wait while they unloaded. more and more cars came down the street and lined up and we could see cars on the other street too. the honking continued for 20 minutes, but the truck driver ignored it. unfortunately for him, there was a police car in line waiting, who finally came out and gave him a ticket. he kept unloading anyway. i guess he figured he already had his ticket. jj was laughing hysterically at the selfishness. she couldn’t believe it. she was also thrilled at watching the cars reversing back up the street. she’d watch, waiting for the next car to start reversing, and then laugh, saying “there goes another one”. now, everytime there is honking, she runs to the window to watch. Print this post