My Different opinions depend on my different perspectives.

I always love getting responses to my blogs, because my blogs usually only offer one side or view of an incident and thus often only express one view of things, and sometimes a one-sided view at that. So I appreciate being reminded that all things usually have more than one side or view and that that view that one takes is often clouded or influenced depending on where you stand personally in relationship to the event. For instance take my recent blog on a traffic control program in Germany (Do We Really Need Traffic Lights At Every Intersection?) In it I was able to express my view in support of that trail, from my own experiences as a Driver in South Africa.

However I received a reply from one of my American friends that made me remember also what it is like to be a pedestrian. She Wrote: “And for people like me that walk most places. Please, if you see someone crossing the street or trying to, let him or her cross if it's safely possible. Don't speed up to get around a pedestrian. It'll only take a moment or two, and both you and the pedestrian will make it safely.”

It made me remember that as a driver I hate Lights and Pedestrian crossings, but as a Pedestrian, and especially when the road is busy, I love them and often couldn’t cross the road without them, so I guess there is a place for everything, even Traffic Lights isn’t there?

So where does that leave us? The real onus here is not just on the lights or the drivers, but also on all of us isn’t it? Drivers and Pedestrians alike, all of us should all do the right thing and at the right time, shouldn’t we? For every driver who “shoots” a light, there is a pedestrian that will cross where they are not supposed to even if near a crossing, isn’t there?

So let’s all stop blaming the other side and all start fully obeying the various laws and regulations properly. After all, most of these laws and regulations only came into being to stop our selfish behaviour in the first place, didn’t they? If someone (us?) hadn’t done certain things originally, there wouldn’t have been a need for a silly law or rule to have come into being in the first place would there?

So instead of each side blaming the other, let us all work together and not only obey the various laws and regulations but also to act in a way towards each other that would make most of the existing rules and regulations obsolete and unneeded.

Well you have heard my say, now what’s yours?