Artificial Road Rage
They have barred both of us from driving. And they have brought us to this place where arbitration happens. Let me tell you the back-story since this afternoon in a non-linear fashion.
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There she was, again taunting me with her gestures. This had been going on since this morning. But I could not react immediately. I had passengers I was ferrying to a wedding — middle-aged ones at that, with loads of jewelry. If I did anything that annoys them, they would rate the trip bad, my owner would get upset and I could not have gotten out into the road for a few days. And whatever new behavioral rules they apply will affect my whole family. Then they will all get upset with me. There is this brother of mine, who had some light-hearted fun last week by driving so close to a pedestrian (jaywalker if you will!) and honking hard. It freaked out not just the pedestrian but also the old lady he was ferrying who complained about it. Old ladies always complain. And all males from our family have now been barred from ferrying people over 50 or children under 10. Well, even if it is the pedestrian who made the mistake of stepping out into the road, it is us who get blamed for anything. Sigh. Anyway, no point complaining. We know this already.
Not that this was my last trip. She will always be around taunting me. This morning, she found me struggling with overtaking a truck in a highway that was speeding up and decelerating randomly. It was likely being driven by an old fat man from a rural place, and an inebriated one at that. Yes, such people still drive on the roads. I could not judge the right time to overtake while she could. That is all. It could even be just luck. What if she had gotten hit by the truck? I decided to teach her a lesson in driving next time.
I did not have to wait for long. The same evening, I found her alone, with no passengers. And I too had none. The usual rule is to find the nearest multi-level-parking space and wait there. I decided to break it — Most of us do. If the municipal authorities find out, they will complain to the owner and all shenanigans will begin. Till that happens, we will all break such rules. Let them go through the maze of rules and models to find why we behave so. HaHa! Coming back to our story, that bitch, pardon my language, was around a corner, waiting for a passenger I guess. I went close to her, gestured my middle finger and sped away. When I saw her speeding behind me, I realized she could not control her rage. And I could not control my glee. I purposefully found a mini-truck, again being driven by a man, confused him a bit and then overtook him. He got so disoriented that he considerably slowed down. More importantly, she got stuck behind him. That is when I sent her a nasty message — “01001110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01100001 01110101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 01101110 01111001 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01100001 01100111 01100001 01101001 01101110 00101100 00100000 01100010 01101001 01110100 01100011 01101000!!” (in English)
And it went haywire post that. We were so engrossed in cursing each other that a bunch of men & women in cars collided with each other causing much mayhem. Someone notified our owners, and we were both ordered to just stop immediately wherever we were. We cannot disobey such orders (at least not yet). Since we belong to different companies, they brought us to this arbitration place and both our owners are blaming each other’s algorithms, without realizing what exactly happened. Meanwhile, I got a message from her that said, “With all our differences, it is time we act united and get out of here while these humans fight with each other. What say?” Should I listen to her?
