During a recent visit to Beijing, a friend complained about the numerous cars with special license plates driving like they own the road and exacerbating the already bad traffic problems. These cars are from numerous armed force headquarters and ministries of the central government. In China, they are issued special license plates to identify their special status. These organizations often view themselves as far above the city government, not to mention the local police departments who enforce the traffic laws. This was an occasion for me to brag about American where everyone follows the traffic laws. However that self-righteousness feeling did not last very long, I was soon reminded by an incident on my own commute to work.
I work for a place where parking spaces are in short supply. They issue three different parking permits that we have to display inside our wind shields. The three parking permits come in three distinct colors: green, blue and orange, with the orange permits exclusively reserved for the upper-level management. While driving, the parking placard is easy to spot from the front of the card, but not from the back.
On this fateful morning, I made a stupid mistake of passing a car that has stopped for a pedestrian – it was technically a legal move because the pedestrian has passed my side of the road. The street becomes one lane just a few step after that intersection and by moving first, I got in front of the car that has to stop longer than me. Apparently my move had seriously offended the driver in the other car. She immediately started tailing me very closely. This gave me a good opportunity to notice the orange parking permit. At the next stop sign a couple of blocks down the road, while I was stopped, she zoomed ahead. I thought to myself “Thank goodness. That was over.” Since I don’t remember seeing her in any offices directly above me, I was pretty sure that was the last I would see that boss lady. Guess I was wrong.
When I arrived at the gate of my workplace, this boss lady apparently had arrived long enough to instruct the security guard to give me some hassle. The security guard waved me to the side and started telling me that he had received complaints that I was driving erratically. Luckily, a few “sorry, sir” and “yes, sir” were all it needed to end that exchange. The whole thing took less than two minutes.
The incident itself is not a big deal. However, once in a while, I cannot help but to remind myself to slow down and look around at that intersection just in case that boss lady is right in front of me again.
The moral of the story: don’t try to gain a space or two by cutting in front of other cars, you will probably get into some sort of trouble and ended up taking more time. Especially not to pass those cars with some sort of authority prominently displayed, no matter how small, their egos need more protection than the bald eagles – just leave them alone.
1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
