Today, I was driving in the parking lot of a strip mall when I came across a simple, but very effective and reliable IQ test. I was in my car, driving toward the Subway in the picture when a car came at me traveling in the opposite direction. As you can see, there’s an entire empty lane to the side of the speed bump. One traveling toward where I was to take this picture could either travel over the speed bump or simply drive around it. There are no parking spots where I was standing and the only way…
Common sense vs mindless rule-following: a follow up
Yesterday, I wrote about a guy who rode his bike up to a stop light at 6am on a Sunday, and waited more than five minutes, with no cars present, before he hit the walk light and crossed when the light turned green. I grew up in the Midwest. We were taught to look both ways. We didn’t have flags. We didn’t have lighted pedestrian walkways. The idea of standing and waiting for the light to change when no cars are in sight wasn’t even an idea. My people would walk through an intersection or across the street when…
When following rules beats common sense
Last Sunday, as I was out running, a biker cruised by me, rode down the hill, and stopped at the red light at the intersection. (The intersection is a busy, main thoroughfare crossed with a local neighborhood road going the other. Visibility is about 200 yards, each way, on the main road.) As soon as he got there, I accurately predicted the rest of this story. He sat there at the light, waiting for the light to turn green. He sat there, and he sat there. Minutes went by. It was just after 6am, so the light needs to…