The Scoot-ocracy

Well, it finally happened. Jesse and I witnessed a scooter accident. I had been told they are fairly common.

Walking home tonight, we saw a small crowd gathered on the corner about one block from our street. As we approached the intersection, we saw a bus stopped in the center, a firetruck and a couple police cars surrounding it, and a man lying in the street. As I was trying to comprehend what I was looking at, Jesse said, "Uh, dead body in the street." As I tried to get a good look, I gasped, "Was he hit by the bus?" Yes, he clearly was. But then Jesse noticed the man's chest moving, and we realized he was alive. He was bleeding from the head and arms. Just as I began to ponder why no one was doing anything, but just directing traffic around this man lying, bleeding in the street, the ambulance arrived. They placed the man on a gurney, and as they cleared him from the street, Jesse pointed out the remains of a motorscooter underneath the front bumper of the bus, shattered to pieces. There was a puddle of blood where he had been lying in the street, like in the movies.

The police were trying to manage the insane traffic around the intersection, as scooters and buses weaved around the accident. The traffic is already insane, so now it was really chaotic. I became scared to cross the street at that point, because the traffic was all screwy and the police were not really noticing the pedestrians - probably because most of them were still standing around chatting about what happened. I started waving at the police and grunting what I call my "Chinese language grunt" (which is not something I made up but actually other people make this sound, too) and then Jesse just found a clearing and I crossed close at his heels.

I hate the scoot-ocracy!!!