A SIGHT AND sound witnessed recently in downtown Marquette.
Car #1 headed north in slow traffic on Front Street stops at a well-marked crosswalk at Main Street to allow a pedestrian, waiting on the sidewalk, to cross Front Street.
Car #2 stops behind Car #1, and the driver immediately leans out the window and starts ranting. “Come on!! He’s not crippled!! You can’t stop there!! What are you doing?!” Loud enough to be heard a half block away.
The pedestrian, surprised that he was causing such a fuss, didn’t cross. Just kinda smiled in disbelief.
Car #1 then pulls up ahead to the red light at Washington. Car #2 zips up alongside #1 and the driver continues screaming and gesturing at the two people in Car #1. If they respond–and they might not have–it is very quietly.
Road rage. A very strange and un-Marquette-like scene.
The ranting driver may very well have been correct since the pedestrian was not yet in the crosswalk, and maybe stopping for him was a traffic hazard. That apparently was the ranter’s argument.
But.
Come on. This is Marquette. We’re friendly here. We’re pedestrian-friendly. We all should drive extra slowly downtown.
Were the folks in Car #1 from out of town? Don’t know. They had a Michigan license plate. If they were, our apologies. We’re not all like that here.
And let us hope that the gentleman in Car#2 was just having a bad day.