Zebra Crossings: The Future of Mankind

If you lived or travelled and drove around overseas, you would realise there is a universal rule to Zebra Crossings. A certain rule that is, oddly, not practised here in Malaysia. There is a kind of balance everyone in the Roads Ministry have always been trying to attain. It is the harmony between the wheels and the legs. Many time they are thrown the ultimate question: when in a junction, who gives way to who? What dictates superiority, flesh or steel?

All around the established world, this has been a rule of thumb. In a junction govern by traffic lights, legs only move when the lights are red. And in a junction paved with Zebra Crossings, wheels wait for the legs. Now if you have never had the luxury of travelling to places out of Malaysia, not even Singapore ( God bless your soul), you won't understand the system I just presented. In Malaysia, steel dominates simply because they usually do all the killing. Normally I would agree with the practices of the West because they would always spend decades of trial-and-error killing their own kind, and finally stick to the method they believe is most effective. But not this.

Have you driven in Singapore or Australia? Do you know how bloody annoying it is to be waiting for flocks and flocks of people to cross the junction? If you don't get what I mean, here's an example:

Imagine that you're in a Star Craft game. Just as you've completed your Gateway, you see one marine walk in and firing away at your buildings. You dread at the crappy speed your zealot is taking to warp in. As it reaches it easily takes down the marine. Peace and quiet returned as you turned to focus on the economy again. Then comes another marine, wrecking what minute amounts of havoc with that Nerf Gun. It's not life threatening, this Marine Stream Theory. But it is annoying. It takes your attention off the important stuff, and it never stops irritating you. Because it comes in one by one by one by one.

You stopped at the junction. Two people cross. You're about to accelerate once they've passed, but there was another group of 5. Then another 1. And another 3. And another 5. And another 1. And another 1. When will you ever be able to leave that wretched Crossing?

I believe the Zebra Crossing is officially obsolete. The world's economic efficiency is at stake here. More zebra crossings mean CEOs will arrive to work later in their chauffeur-driven Phantoms, have less time to sign the papers, do less trading, have less time to source new business ventures for their companies, and ultimately contributing less to the world trade as a whole. Then it will trickle down to us. We'll have less year-end bonuses, won't be able to afford the iPad 3, and may eventually die from overwork if you're with PwC.