The unsafe sound of silence

The unsafe sound of silence

The most annoying thing about people wearing headphones is they can’t hear the abuse being hurled at them, according to Jane O’Loughlin.

Have you ever been walking just behind someone on the street that you want to pass, but every time you go to overtake them they veer across the pavement, just enough to get in your way?

I walk to work, as many Mt Victorians do, and it’s a phenomenon I encounter regularly.  It used to baffle me. Were these people stupid, drunk, or was this an elaborate prank the world was playing on me?

I eventually discovered the truth is much more mundane:  these wanderers are wearing ear buds.

They’ve cancelled the world’s noises out and the interesting side effect of this seems to be that their peripheral vision is gone as well.  They are in their own tunnel of existence and oblivious to others in their orbit.

I now play a game where I predict whether a person has ear buds in, by the degree of annoying weaving about the pavement that they do.  I am correct 95% of the time. 

People with headphones are fascinating for many reasons.  For example, they also seem to think that not being able to hear dangers is some form of protection.  Many is the time I see people head down and headphones in, heading out into traffic. Then when a car screeches to a halt in front of them they appear indignant that the car exists, given that they specifically taken measures not to hear the car.

While I may roll my eyes at the earphoned walker, at least they are not really a danger to anyone but themselves.

We can’t say the same for the earphoned scooter rider.  

 You would think if you were going to take to the streets on a powerful vehicle with no walls to bounce off, you might want to have your wits about you, and a helmet.

But the only thing most scooter riders stick on their noggin is headphones.  The thinking seems to be the audio equivalent of the ostrich with its head in the sand: If I have my headphones on, I won’t be able to hear the cars therefore I will be safe.

Of course the other precaution that most scooter riders take is to ride on the footpath, where they can become the apex predator, rather than on the road, where they are at risk from scarier beasts like cars, trucks and electric vehicles.

On the footpath, they can reign supreme, hooning noiselessly up to hapless pedestrians like a stalking lion on the African savannah, running down the nervous little walking gazelles.

They seem to take particular joy in zooming by closely, so close that one step in the wrong direction would create a nasty accident.

I have to admit the real reason the headphones on scooter riders bug me is that I am often shouting at them as they buzz past me, and it bothers me that they can’t hear the colourful language I am using to describe them.

It’s a particular risk at street corners – for example Taranaki and Wakefield Street.  You need to peer around the corner cautiously before stepping out, in case there is a scooter rider in full flight coming at you.

All in all, the commute to work can be a case of survival of the fittest, and by that I don’t mean those with best fitness level.

There is a complex hierarchy of commuters, all battling for supremacy, their patch of road and their right to exist. 

I can’t help feeling we might all enhance our chances of survival if we made more of an effort to engaging – politely! - with each other in the process.