Stepping out of a bus is taking my life into my hands. If people in cars or on motorbikes are turning right, they can (and will!) drive through anything and anyone (and look out if you are in the way!). I can't expect to be given way to - or even avoided. Those horizontal white lines on the road? I think of them as more of a suggestion for a nice place to possibly try to cross the road, rather than an actual crossing with rights or priorities.
And footpaths are a challenge. Even for the sure-footed, slipping into a trench or tripping over a pile of rocks is in the "highly likely" section of the risk matrix. And I do have a trench-falling-in history so I need to take care.
Sure, I've fallen off my chair at work and dropped my phone off the back of a tuk tuk already, but am yet to experience a footpath tragedy. It's only a matter of time...
Off the main roads, many footpaths are pretty crap.
A crap footpath
Sometimes they are just being used for something else, like storage of stuff...
Where else would they put the sand pile?
Even in Melbourne you're allowed to park your scooter on the footpath - so what am I whinging about?
Not exactly approved protective boots for use with a jackhammer.
These are not "footpaths" at all. This paved strip beside the road is not and may not ever have been intended for walking on. Or certainly not ONLY for walking on. You can't really even call it a "sidewalk". Perhaps "pavement" works (ergh!). I think I'll stick with "side of the road".
This strip is for eating on...
Shopgirls having lunch
Side of the road soup restaurant
Permanent cafe fixtures
And then there's the lottery sales every evening that set up across the whole of the footpath side of the road making pedestrians (me) walk on the road.
Gotta be in it to win it
Lotta lotto
And sometimes I have to watch my step for fear of walking on something I'd then have to pay for.
"Old" stuff for sale
Don't stand on the fish
Another pedestrian forced to walk on the road (maybe by choice)
Conveniently, some footpath damage makes it easy to wheel motorbikes up and over.
Some just run out into nothingness
And some - even those only a few months old - are a little bit country and a little bit rock'n'roll.
I think you should buy some of that old stuff, looks great. You better not text while walking.
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