Old men, driving, directing traffic… Oh Golly!
Posted on | October 13, 2006 | No Comments
The “Last Word” in a recent issue of Metropolis (article available at http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/653/lastword.asp)about the number of old men (ojisan in Japanese) that direct people around construction sites in Japan captured my attention. Its true that there are a lot of older people directing the public around (potentially) dangerous places where construction is taking place. However, as I ride my bicycle around I often come across them directing traffic either on a narrow city road or a country road. In either case the road has one lane of traffic in each direction and the ojisan, equipped with their light baton, direct traffic. The problem usually arises when there are two of them one at each end of the construction area. The problem is even more pronounced when one cannot see the other end of the construction area (usually due to a curve in the construction area). The problem is that they do not always properly check with each other and one will wave me though and the other (who is not visible, remember) will wave a line of cars in. Anyone who has seen an older person driving a car can image what I mean. The number of times we hear stories of an old man pressing the wrong pedal in the car or getting confused at some other situation is quite staggering. There was a story just recently where an elderly gentleman drove his car into a convenience store because he “got the pedals confused”. Older drivers, who can be identified by the “old-driver” shield that must be put the front and back of the car, on the road are quite unpredictable. Sudden, unindicated turns, lane changes etc…. If older men are going to direct people around, it should be relegated to the sidewalk where a mistake will at worst lead to two people coming close to bumping into each other, non-fatally.
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