Sunday, October 18, 2015

"Oliver Sacks and the Art of Choosing Empathy Over Vengeance"

"An existential lesson gleaned from a brush with death and foolishness."
I was riding along Sunset Boulevard at a leisurely pace, enjoying the weather — it was a perfect spring day — and minding my own business. Seeing a car behind me in my driving mirror, I motioned the driver to overtake me. He accelerated, but when he was parallel with me, he suddenly veered towards me, making me swerve to avoid a collision. It didn’t occur to me that this was deliberate; I thought the driver was probably drunk or incompetent. Having overtaken me, the car then slowed down. I slowed, too, until he motioned me to pass him. As I did so, he swung into the middle of the road, and I avoided being sideswiped by the narrowest margin. This time there was no mistaking his intent.
I have never started a fight. I have never attacked anyone unless I have been attacked first. But this second, potentially murderous attack enraged me, and I resolved to retaliate. I kept a hundred yards or more behind the car, just out of his line of sight, but prepared to leap forward if he was forced to stop at a traffic light. This happened when we got to Westwood Boulevard. Noiselessly — my bike was virtually silent — I stole up on the driver’s side, intending to break a window or score the paintwork on his car as I drew level with him. But the window was open on the driver’s side, and seeing this, I thrust my fist through the open window, grabbed his nose, and twisted it with all my might; he let out a yell, and his face was all bloody when I let go. He was too shocked to do anything, and I rode on, feeling I had done no more than his attempt on my life had warranted.
"Shortly after this heart-stopping encounter, Dr. Sacks found himself in a strikingly similar incident while driving to San Francisco on a desert road. An aggressive driver suddenly appeared onto the empty expanse and, moving at 90 mph, deliberately forced the motorcycle off the road."
By a sort of miracle, I managed to hold the bike upright, throwing up a huge cloud of dust, and regained the road. My attacker was now a couple of hundred yards ahead. Rage more than fear was my chief reaction, and I snatched a monopod from the luggage rack (I was very keen on landscape photography at the time and always traveled with camera, tripod, monopod, etc., lashed to the bike). I waved it round and round my head, like the mad colonel astride the bomb in the final scene of Dr. Strangelove. I must have looked crazy — and dangerous — for the car accelerated. I accelerated too, and pushing the engine as much as I could, I started to overtake it. The driver tried to throw me off by driving erratically, suddenly slowing, or switching from side to side of the empty road, and when that failed, he took a sudden side road in the small town of Coalinga — a mistake, because he got into a maze of smaller roads with me on his tail and finally got trapped in a cul-de-sac. I leapt off the bike (all 260 pounds of me) and rushed towards the trapped car, waving the monopod. Inside the car I saw two teenage couples, four terrified people, but when I saw their youth, their helplessness, their fear, my fist opened and the monopod fell out of my hand.
I shrugged my shoulders, picked up the monopod, walked back to the bike, and motioned them on. We had all, I think, had the fright of our lives, felt the nearness of death, in our foolish, potentially fatal duel.

15 comments:

AllenS said...

Get rid of the bike. Buy a Hummer.

Shouting Thomas said...

I am constantly astounded, when I ride my Harley, by car drivers who want to fight it out for position with a motorcycle.

I watch for them all the time.

I mostly ride out in the mountains and avoid traffic, but from time to time I ride into NYC. It is all out combat!

Aridog said...

Where I live, motor cycles and their usual riders are no problem and follow the same rules of the road I do....whether they're on Harleys (what else is there really?) or little Hondas (why?). Bicyclists could learn from the motorcyclists...guess what, idiots, against 4000 lb vehicles, you f'ing lose! Grow some manners.

Chip Ahoy said...

High drama. No guns, knives nor blood.

I give bikes a wide berth. They make me nervous. They're so fragile and they placed themselves out amongst the heavy metal with momentum and drinkers, sleepy, high, makeup applying, child addressing, phone answering, hamburger eating, big gulp slurping, bee in the windshield, Southeast Asian, Citizens of the Erf, slalom skiing drivers. Blind spots, absentmindedness, and all that. All that at once. Puts me on edge.

One of my favorite right wing writers is on about noticing a tendency for overregulation, recently across a couple of posts. Today one was about pain drugs being regulated to become more difficult because some people abuse them, then an analogy is extended for other things being regulated because some people abuse them and that led to me recall, flashback decades actually, to a childhood memory of being PISSED OFF AS ALL HELL about being strapped into the seat of a car. I HATED being tied up and restricted to seated position. Oh! It was the child laughing in the child's seat at something funny to him beyond his comprehension, as disinterested observer about something he doesn't know affects him drastically. It's just funny. Tied up like that in his carrier. Strapped in and amused. Not me. I was never amused strapped in.

I indulged the resentment. Made it comical. I thought back through all the decades of strapping in because some special someone (my Dad) decided seat bealts are necessary. Then it's such a great idea, saves so many lives that it becomes law. Now everybody must strap in every single time they drive even if they drive around the corner. It's law! It's absolute. All those belt-clicking. It got me. The waste. It got me in a comical way. I imitated a week's worth of snapping a seatbelt to commute and include all the other snapping for other travel for a series of rapid snaps. Then I flutter my tongue to imitate a year's worth of seat belt snapping. Then continuous fluttering of tongue spraying saliva into the room to perform the comedy for a decade worth of useless seat belt snapping. Breathe. New lung full of air for tongue fluttering seat belt snapping imitation for decades without once ever getting knocked around in a car. All that preparation for nothing.

And then at 89 year old and looking back at thing I regret, top of the list is strapping in all those time for nothing. Never a rollover. Never a 10 car pile up. Nothing. Just obedience to a law.

The imitation really is funny, too bad nobody else was around to be amused by it. (I actually don't know what "berth" means, I thought they were cots on ships or where you park a ship)

William said...

When I was far younger, I rode a bike. It seems your very fragility brings out the blood lust in some people. In NYC, cab drivers were the the absolute worst. All their dissatisfaction with their crappy lives was focused on motorcycle riders. Some kind of Easy Rider thing. I had a friend who severely and painfully damaged his shoulder. He went back to riding after he recovered. I gave it up after seeng his pain. There's just too many lunatics, potholes, and sand on the off ramps to make freedom accessible for a daily commute.

ricpic said...

Try not to forget that Oliver Sacks is the exception. He has an internal governor. When we're young we get into all kinds of near violent confrontations and if we're lucky the worst that happens is a beating. It's only when you pass 40, for some younger for some older, and you have finally learned to count down from ten or not make that last cutting remark, it's only then that you marvel at having survived youth at all.

bagoh20 said...

So a happy ending. Justice, learning, a little excitement, and nobody got hurt. It's all good. I've ridden motorcycles since I was 15. I've owned one nearly continuously all along. I've never had anything like this happen to me. People sometimes pull out in front of me because they don't see me, but never seen any acts of malice. I'm sure it happens, but it must be very rare.

Aridog said...

bagoh20 ... motorcycles are okay here, they seem to have manners, as I said, but if you're suicidal, try riding a bicycle on Warren Avenue during rush hour. They tend to invoke rage and most pedal pumpers drive like they're alone on the road in 2-3 lanes of traffic all irritated and in a hurry to get to work or get home. Weaving in and out and between cars is a habit they have and now and then they get squashed. Detroit has freeways, but they're all big "ditches" (one accident and you get a 2 mile long jam), so I drive surface streets whenever I can do so. Thus I see a lot of bicycle idiots....who apparently think they're all immortal. Like Chip Ahoy said, the bike folk make me nervous...might scratch my truck or something.

Aridog said...

I should add the ethnic group I live among are notorious for thinking a stop sign means momentarily take foot of the gas, then stomp on it...and that puts even well mannered motor cyclists at risk. We should have a neighborhood sign warning of this ethnic deficiency :-) Heartbreak is an expensive new Harley smashed up by an oblivious loon in a big car or truck...even if the biker survives. Not sure how the older riders can pick up their 500-600 lb bikes off the roadway once dumped...must be some leverage trick I never learned on my old Zundap back in the day...it was rather light. Good thing too as I dumped it a lot banging up and down hills and through the woods when not on real roads. Almost as bad as riding horses cross country where the fences and barriers don't fall down if hit. Whap! And then see whose head hit dirt first, yours or the horse's.

Aridog said...

That said, I regret my hill climbing and woods running days on a motorcycle...tore up the environment more than necessary...same for bicycles. But...when young you just might be an idiot.

As for riding horses over hard obstacles, the last question is whether the horse lands on top of you...happened to me once when I couldn't roll away fast enough from a crash with a 3 tier rock fence. Both of us went A** over tea kettle. Broken arm healed well, so there's that. Plus the horse was unhurt, got up, and just stood there looking at me like I was an idiot. He was probably right...I blew the cue.

Amartel said...

Bikers on highways are always weaving through slow traffic past cars. That's their prerogative but you take your chances.

Aridog said...

Amartel ... not sure it their "prerogative," whether bicycle or motorcycle, to "weave through [between] slow traffic cars" ... let alone use road shoulders to pass them. Where I live my understanding is that bicycles and motorcycles are bound by the same laws and rule of the road as cars and trucks, save the lack of licensing for bicycles. Just because they can doesn't mean it is legal, advisable, or safe....eg., that vehicles must watch out for them. As I've said above, motorcyclists here generally follow the same rules I do in my truck, but too many bicyclists don't. My view is that if we share the road, we share the responsibility.

Again, like Chip Ahoy said earlier, bicyclists make me nervous on crowded city streets...I'm fairly certain who gets it up the backside should I bump in to one of the "weavers"...social correctness and all that. I'd be interested in learning how our vehicle "no-fault" insurance here would treat such an event? To my knowledge, bicyclists are not required to have insurance at all, while motor cyclists are required to do so as a licensing requirement. So is "fault" the default position for a me? Thus I'm nervous around bicycles in the city.

Aridog said...

What? No one else has "no fault" insurance laws and wonders how they apply to bicycles...the concept is that each driver/operator is responsible for their own damages...so if uninsured, how does that work?

Aridog said...

Really, I anxiously await Billxxx2575's response about the lack of insurance for bicycles on public highways, since he advocates no tag licensing either on another thread.

Aridog said...

Never mind davidm2575 posts on a different blog. My error.