Todays Society - When Do We Intervene?

Monday wasn’t the best bank holiday I’ve ever had; waking up and not feeling in the best frame of mind, we had to drive to the south side of Kidderminster to meet my brother and sister-in-law for a lunchtime meetup. It wasn’t the company; in fact, we had a good couple of hours catch up. It was that I just couldn’t be bothered with the drive; I wanted to stay at home and chill out. It was one of those occasions where I had to get on with things, regardless of how I felt.

My Scottish team, Rangers, was playing at 5.30, a big game in the race for the Scottish Premiership title, and one that Rangers had to win to have any chance of winning the league.

At 4:00 we decided to pop up for a couple of drinks here in Shifnal before the game started at 5:30. After a couple of friendly drinks, we left the pub and were outside chatting with more friends. When we said our goodbyes, I turned to walk home to be confronted with two young teenage girls on an illegal e-scooter, riding their way down the pedestrian area here in town.

Now here is the dilemma: what do you do? The scooter looked quite big and so would be reasonably powerful, so I asked them to stop, which they did, and I politely asked them if they realised it was illegal to use an e-scooter. Their reply was a bit blank, as I think they had been caught unaware. However, they did reply with something along the lines of ‘my dad bought it for me.’ I mentioned that it didn’t matter who bought it for them; it was still illegal. Anyway, we did a quick online search, and I showed them that, in fact, I was correct, and they sort of looked at each other a bit blankly and didn’t say anything.

I think at this stage they just sort of slunk off, because the conversation was taken over by 4/5 young teenage lads sitting in the square, slightly above me, also telling me I was wrong. When I started chatting to them, my ethnicity came into the conversation, and it was lighthearted banter. But when the young lads got bored and walked away, one shouted back that I was a Scottish pr**k.

It’s my heritage, and if you insult it, it’s a hate crime. It is no different from anti-Semitism.

"Scottish Flag" by flickrtickr2009 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

I jumped onto the wall and asked them if one of them was brave enough to come back and say that to my face, which, of course, I knew they wouldn’t, and they all took off. I laughed and headed home; however, it was refreshing that one local man had heard all this and said something similar to. ‘Fair play, Dave. You said the right things.’ Later in the day as we messaged each other about it, he confirmed just that, so it was good to know I had an independent witness and someone that would be considered an upstanding member of the community.

I didn’t really need it, as I know I had done nothing wrong. I was polite with the young girls, simply showing them, they were doing something illegal, and even the conversation with the young lads was good to the end, all light-hearted, except the farewell insult

After walking a short distance, I remembered I wanted a couple of beers at home to watch the game, so I doubled back to the local off licence to find there was a queue, with three of the young lads inside. As we were waiting, I asked them if they wanted to say anything else racist towards me or insult my ethnicity; they didn't, and they went very shy and quiet, and of course when I asked, none of them had actually said anything; it was their mate who was outside, and funnily enough, by the time I got served and went outside, they had all vanished.

Says it all

Courtesy of Google search

But this left a bitter taste in my mouth, and yes, it has gotten to me. Are we really living in a society where we cannot politely approach youngsters doing something wrong - not morally wrong but illegally wrong, and where do we draw the line when we see people breaking the law?

Now I will admit, I don’t like e-scooters; they should be banned from being sold, never mind banned from public use (unless they are part of a government-approved scheme, which does not exist in our town.) Young children ride them on roads at speed, and they have no experience of highways, the codes, and right and wrong, and at their age they will lack common sense.

They ride them too fast; only on Saturday we saw one going from his left-hand side of the road across the road to a drop kerb to use a path around the corner, but it was right at a blind junction, and had a car been turning there when he crossed the road, there could have been catastrophic results. And as with a previous post, how would the driver have felt when it was no fault of theirs had, God forbid, something serious happened?

There are many senior citizens in town, and if the children are scooting around the pedestrian area on these powerful scooters, right outside the shops, who knows who could be walking out of one of the shops when the scooter goes flying by? Let’s face it, we shouldn’t have to be on scooter and bike alert when we want to go shopping, as they shouldn’t be there. And for many older people it won’t ever cross their minds to check.

Is it right and is it safe? No!!

"E-scooters, La Défense, 20190209" by G · RTM is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

But back to today’s society, who is in the wrong, me for saying something to the young girls (by the way, my wife was also with me and will happily confirm my polite approach to them) or the parents for buying the scooter and letting them ride it illegally on pavements (or anywhere) among pedestrians when they will have very limited experience of driving anything, let alone a fast scooter amongst people? Well, sorry, but in my world it’s not me, and if someone stopped my daughter because she was doing something illegal and dangerous, especially both, I would probably shake their hand.

At what stage do we get involved in legal activities? We don’t say anything to people who throw litter or smokers who throw their cigarette ends on the pavement, as it’s unlikely to cause a problem. I would, however, say something to a dog owner if they let their dog have a poo and they didn’t pick it up. They’re breaking the law, leaving a smelly mess for people to walk in, or run through it on their e-scooter!! Nobody wants that, and I tend to say something because inconsiderate and lazy dog owners who don’t pick up their dog’s mess give dog owners like me a bad name.

But where else do we get involved? Someone I know was getting beaten up last year by a small group of feral youths who had come into town to cause trouble. They had stolen his bike, and when he tried to get it back, they turned on him with a physical assault. I tried to help, and I probably didn’t do very much, but hopefully enough to get them to leave and run off. So, my question to you is, where do we intervene and where do we turn a blind eye?

Authority is not feared these days; people shout and swear at the police. How about the child at school who was getting told off by a teacher, so the child face-timed her mum, and the mum had a go at the teacher – really? Kids flick the Vs at police before running off laughing, as the police have had so much power taken from them.

When I was 12/14 ish years old, I remember being told off by the police for walking across a zebra crossing too slowly, and to this day I make sure I get a move on so I don’t hold cars up and get out of their way as soon as possible.

A guy I went to school with was a bit of a troublemaker, and I remember one weekend night he was up to his usual no-good; along came the police, bundled him into their van, and 20 minutes later he was back slightly worse off physically, but if I remember correctly, he calmed down for at least a few weeks, probably longer!

We don’t want to go back to that, but crime is everywhere, and many people will turn a blind eye to what goes on. Personally, I struggle with that, and that is an age thing! If people are riding e-scooters and bikes illegally in pedestrian areas and on pavements and nothing gets said, how would you feel if the e-scooter or bike ran into your mum or elderly grandmother or anyone you know as they exited a shop? Would you be happy if no one had done anything? I bet you wouldn’t, but if that e-scooter or bike wasn’t there in the first place because it wasn’t supposed to be, then surely that would make things a better place for everyone.

But please don’t have a go at me if I point out that you or your child is doing something wrong; I never do it by shouting or swearing at people, unless, of course, that is how you want to speak to me! But another part of today’s society is ‘mind your own business.’ If you do mention to someone they are doing wrong, how often do they retaliate and defend themselves? In our day you put your hand up and apologised – how times have changed, for the worst!

The worst part of the day – Rangers got beat!

Thanks for reading

DJ