[QUOTE=Celyn]
Oh boy. I first thought the idea had a certain appeal to anyone like me who is sick of cars driven by bastards who don’t believe in stopping at red lights, but then I realised he is actually serious.
[/QUOTE]
I used to live on a street with an elementary school, in between two major arterial roads, which was a popular shortcut taken by assholes wanting to shave a few seconds off their commute.
All day, fucking morons would screeaaam through there – right past the elementary school, at the crest of hill, with limited vision. What speed limit?
I used to fantasize about rolling a dummy kid-on-a-bike or perambulator (maybe made of meat) in front of one of these jerks.
The only actual action I ever took was voting “yes” to traffic-calming measures for the block. (Big-assed bumps.)
For the next month or so it was super amusing to stand out in my yard and watch the morons encounter the bumps for the first time. Amazing how many never appeared to have a clue that these big, highly contrasting, three-feet-wide and nine-inch-high things, marked by prominent signage no less, were immediately in front of them.
They’d hid fast and hard, and sometimes get out to see if there was any actual damage to the undercarriage/body)
The sweetest time was when two assholes approached fairly close together. One braked after the first bump, and the second asshole gave him a bang from the rear – although he was following at quite a healthy distance – he was just going too fast to come to a stop in time. Did I mention it was at dusk, immediately adjacent to a school/playground?
Considerable damage, but I doubt either of them were eager to make an insurance claim.
I definitely like the brick idea – as sort of a fantasy number.
It appeals to the same part of me that feels society would probably experience a net gain if demonstrably rude behaviour from a victim was an accepted defense against common assault charges:
“This court finds that, while Mr. Thompson has suffered considerable facial injuries at the hands of Mr. Taylor, these injuries are a result of Mr. Thompson’s ill-considered decision to spit, repeatedly, inside the carriage of a public conveyance, thereby creating a common nuisance. Case dismissed. Next?”
In this fantasy number of mine, things are a little rough at first, but we eventually arrive at a society that has learned to value proper public behaviour, god-damn it. Likewise, part of me likes a solution that would create some deterrent to speeding for that subset of society that can only be persuaded by the forceful application of a blunt object.
[/cranky]