No reaction

I rode past a car crash on my way into work this morning. For some that might seem like a remarkable event, but to be honest I just saw it as another obstacle that I had to negotiate to get from point A to point B. Apparently there were two cars involved, and from the positioning of them it was apparent that at least one of them ran a red light. I rode away thinking more about my own reaction than the crash itself. How did I become so desensitised to this sort of thing?

I've heard theories in the past which suggest that if a person watches too much carnage on their television, they can become desensitised to similar things happening in their own world. That doesn't really apply to me because I simply don't watch enough television, and yet, I appear totally desensitised by the crash this morning. One might argue that because I don't drive a car I "wouldn't understand", but I've had enough crashes on my bike (albeit without ever actually breaking anything more than a spoke) to know that it hurts.

A more likely conclusion is that I have become desensitised to car crashes because I've ridden past so many of them. It would be an exaggeration to say that I see them everyday, but only a small exaggeration. The same applies with red light runners, speed freaks, drunks, and all the rest. On Saturday's ride, for example, I had some drunk in a ute asked me if there was an RBT unit up the road. He was so drunk that he had to say it three times before I figured out what he wanted (unfortunately, there wasn't one, but I wouldn't have told him if there was). Most days I see at least one idiot who thinks red lights don't apply to them (I'm sure there would be more if I rode on quieter roads, where traffic doesn't provide the same "hindrance" to red light runners), and "speed limit" seems to mean "minimum acceptable speed" these days.

Consequently, when I see the inevitable result of this behaviour, I am not at all surprised. This morning it was "just another idiot who didn't look before charging through the light". In truth, if I'd been the "victim" of this crash, I'd probably be admonishing myself for failing to predict that the other guy wasn't stopping. It is, of course, very sad that a public road, any public road, should descend into this sort of chaos. But until people start thinking of something other than themselves for five minutes, and until we get a police force that is either willing or able to enforce the law, I'm just going to have to keep dealing with this obstacle day after day.