Monday, March 03, 2008

Reflector Vest Guys

I want to get one of those nifty little reflector vests that the Cal-Trans and other city workers get to wear. I want one in order that I might test out a theory that I have been developing today after having nearly hit a guy in one and having previously seen another guys in one just about get hit. In both occasions the genius individuals in those nifty little reflector vests walked into on coming traffic with out so much as a care for their own safety or the safety of others who might swerve out of their own sense of concern for them. The first reflector vest guy, walked out from behind the parked construction vehicles that he and others were working from on Orangethorpe. He was crossed from the construction blocked lane into on-coming traffic, and back behind another truck parked on the side of the road. The entire group of us funneling through that single lane slowed as the person in front tried to not clip this city worker. I four cars back did the same to avoid the car in front of me.

The second occurrence took place as I turned left off of Beach Blvd. onto La Mirada Blvd. on my way to school. There were a pair of guys in the left turn lane loading cones onto the front of their truck. As I turned onto La Mirada Blvd. They finished and one went to enter his car on the passenger's side the other on the driver's side. I did not see if he even looked toward where I was coming. He seemed to just step out around the front of his truck, out in front of me and then start to reach for the door handle as I swerved slightly between his vested-self and the cars in the turn lane to my right.

So, now the question is, why do I want a reflector vest of my very own. Well, what I want to discover is if the brazen actions of these two guys come from sort of a super power given to them by the vest or whether people just naturally avoid them so much that they begin to believe that they can just walk anywhere and no one will get close to them. The vests seem to act like some sort of bumper repellent and I just want to understand how.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No, see, your life first has to suck. Then you get issued one of these vests. The wearing of it and the apparent disregard for one's own life are not causally connected, but they are temporally connected.

Don't get a vest . . .