I’d like to thank the group of a dozen or so well-dressed young ladies who I’ll assume were participating in a greek function last Thursday evening. As your group crossed Court Street from BP on your way to a party at the house next to the Over Hang around 9 p.m., I learned a valuable lesson.
I’m well aware that a sense of entitlement of students at Ohio University means the proper use of crosswalks with traffic signals are merely suggestions to be ignored, particularly in the hours when drinking becomes the focus of activities. I have had my car beaten more than once by groups of men who refuse to yield the roadway to traffic with the right of way, angered with my use of the street. Many of my motorist friends have had similar frightening, violent experiences.
The behavior you displayed was nearly as dangerous as the propensity of drunken bar patrons to blindly enter the street, out from between parked cars in the middle of the block, stumbling across to the next watering hole without regard to potential death from collision with an automobile and bricks.
By suddenly stopping in the middle of the street to have a conversation, facing the opposite direction of oncoming traffic, ignoring it altogether, you did in fact create a dangerous situation that required the last-minute honking, swerving and panic brake usage. I feel very lucky there wasn’t someone behind me rear-ending my vehicle into your bodies when I had to stop short.
While I expect anger and derision from pedestrians of Court Street who confront vehicular traffic in their dangerous game of chicken, it seems to be steadily getting worse. My lesson is to NEVER underestimate the utter lack of self-preservation or respect some people have for themselves when they believe rules of society do not apply to them.
Though mob mentality behavior might give you a sense of power to confront established norms and laws meant to protect you and others from such a cavalier attitude, I fear ignoring the laws of physics will one day provide us with a dead Bobcat on the bricks and a sad valuable lesson for everyone.
John Sullivan is an Ohio University alumnus who studied graphic design and received his Master of Fine Arts in ’92.
