Sebastian the Naughty Pedestrian
I am writing from Bangkok. I am on a business trip and staying in the same hotel from my first trip to Asia in 1990. But details of that surreal experience are another story altogether.
One thing Tess and I always warn friends and family about when they visit Hong Kong, is that pedestrians DO NOT have the right-of-way… vehicles do… and the driving culture in Hong Kong fully endorses that reality. The roads in Hong Kong are dangerous because drivers expect that pedestrians will actively avoid cars. In general people do – peds KNOW only to cross on "Walk" signals or when the coast is clear. Contrast this with Canada, where there are a lot more rules in place that give pedestrians the right-of-way. I remember one day walking down a sidewalk in Vancouver while apartment hunting. I backed up to a curb to get a better vantage point of an apartment building. As my gaze returned to the ground I noticed traffic had stopped to let me cross the street… I wasn’t even at an intersection or a crosswalk or even facing the street!
The point of all this… I just got off the phone with Tess, who reported that Sebastian stooped to new lows of not listening today, dashed out into the street, and nearly got himself struck by a car. Tess said it was a terrifying experience. The good news – he is safe and unharmed. The bad news, Sebastian doesn’t think he did anything wrong: he thinks he has the right of way or that he is living in Canada.
