Thinking about others, too

To the editor:

I have been puzzled about this for many years, and I’m hoping you or your readers could enlighten me.

Every time I have to drive through the “business district” of Riverdale at West 235th Street and Johnson Avenue, I and every other driver have to navigate an obstacle course of double-parked cars.

One example is from a recent morning when I was getting a bagel at my favorite store where I found a vehicle not moving — just parked in the traffic lane, at an intersection blocking turns and through-traffic.

No attempt was made to park, even though there were plenty of spaces. It was literally in the middle of the street.

I confronted the driver. He told me he didn’t care about blocking traffic, and could do whatever he wanted. He was Russian, so I asked if that was a Russian thing, to just ignore the law. He later clarified he was an American citizen, as if that gave him permission to break laws.

The car was there for a full 10 minutes while he waited in line. He kept telling me I was sick in the head and hated Russians. But, of course, it’s not only Russians who act this way: everyone does it.

Here’s my question: Where do these people get this gigantic sense of entitlement and privilege? Is it a side effect of COVID-19? Can I acquire it somewhere so I can have total disregard for every other human?

It would make my life so much easier if I could just do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

Here’s another question: Do the police or local pols care about this at all? Seems to me there’s a fortune to be made by aggressively ticketing these lawbreakers. Why does this situation persist?

I look forward to the ‘enlightening” answers.

Stephen de Francesco

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