It’s Friday, so we may as well post two videos this afternoon. This one is a Disney cartoon revealing the split personality the pleasant pedestrian Mr. Walker and his alter-ego rude motorist Mr. Wheeler. While it’s obviously exaggerated—it’s a cartoon—how much do you think it reflects reality?
Founder and Editor at Broken Sidewalk
Branden founded Broken Sidewalk in 2008 while practicing architecture in Louisville. He continued the site for seven years while living in New York City, returning to Louisville in 2016. Branden is a graduate of the College of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, and has covered architecture, design, and urbanism for The Architect's Newspaper, Designers & Books, Inhabitat, and the American Institute of Architects.
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Seeing driving in animation like this, it struck me that driving has become a video game. I’ve said before that people in Louisville drive as though they are in their living room and every once in a while they notice it’s moving. Now I’m thinking that the avoidance of turning signals, the running of red lights, the wandering from lane to lane, etc. is an indication that they are blurring realities. There are no turn signals in the arcade.
The ugly rage is interestingly lacking here, though (I know… I avoid the Gene Snyder, so I may be wrong).
Problem is, so many walkers are in that same “zone” – and will step out in front of moving traffic, which has the light, and then “flip off” the driver who honks or screaches their tires trying to avoid hitting them.
While pedestrians can be “distracted” as well, I have so seldom seen that problem in Louisville that I think its pretty negligible. There are rude people everywhere, so conflicts like that can happen everywhere. The vast majority happen from drivers as motorists far outnumber pedestrians.
nice catch!
I’ve been chuckling about this video ever since David Crowell linked it on his blog some months ago–I even have it bookmarked, so that I could link it from my blog a month or so ago. Always a thought-provoking cartoon.