When ignorance paid off – for an iguana

DEBBIE JACOB

I GAVE a proper hand signal for cars going around the Savannah to stop and all the drivers behind me responded by laying on their horns. Silly me always hopes for a little kindness and understanding on the road.

I wouldn’t be stopped dead in the middle lane if I didn’t have some kind of problem, and in this case, I didn’t want the fat, fluorescent-green iguana that looked like Godzilla to be smashed to smithereens.

In the moment I saw him, I felt sure my good deed for the day was to save that iguana’s life.

The iguana needed to cross the road, and I happened to be the car he chose to make that happen. He darted out from the Belmont side of the road where the old silk cotton tree used to be, and stopped in front of my car. The iguana stared me right in the eye.

This was a moment of reckoning. He stood there for what felt like an eternity while car horns blared nonstop.

And this is where the story takes a turn. This isn’t just about my mission to save the iguana. It’s also about the analytical skills you should have learned in school that you are not putting to good use.

Couldn’t you figure out when you bent the corner of the road and saw me stopped cold just past the St Ann’s roundabout that something was wrong? You didn’t have to leap to the conclusion that I stopped for an iguana to walk across the road, but you might have possibly thought I was having car trouble.

I certainly wasn’t sitting there to comb my hair, lick an ice cream cone or call someone on my cell phone. There had to be some issue and right then, the problem was the iguana who would not move.

“Go on, go on,” I coaxed.

The iguana paused by my right wheel and looked towards the oncoming traffic. Lucky for the reptile, everyone was too busy being vexed to take advantage of two empty lanes beside me. Had those cars sped around me, they might have hit the iguana as he made his dash into the Savannah.

But no, everyone decided to stay behind me and blow their horns with all the fury they could muster. No car passed me.

With the iguana safely inside the Savannah, I drove on wondering why so many people project their anger on to other drivers. Cars suddenly sped past me, reminding me how a little courtesy on the road would go a long way.

No one deserves to feel afraid or nervous while driving because far too many drivers want to speed everyone up.

I don’t care how upset you get with me on any day I’m driving because I’m going to drive carefully and courteously. I’m going to press pause and let a couple of cars coming from a side street merge into a lane in front of me.

I’m going to allow pedestrians and iguanas to walk across the road, and I’m going to bite my tongue so I don’t succumb to road rage.

People need to work on their road manners, and learn the importance of considering others. Be careful. Be considerate. Be kind. Kindness goes a long way in this anger-driven country once served well by its nonchalance and sense of humour.

You can set the mood for your day – and other people’s day – by how you behave on the road. Your behaviour affects your work day, and if you end your day by driving home, you set that mood for the evening at home too.

For me, a road creates a sense of community and the opportunity to participate in community service. Every act of kindness you participate in while you’re driving, connects you to someone you don’t even know.

It creates a sense of well-being on another level, and you end up benefiting more than the people you have selflessly helped.

We create the mood that defines us at home, in the work place and in this country, and the road shows us this symbolically and practically speaking.

I’m grateful the iguana got saved, but it didn't escape me that if drivers hand’t been so engrossed in their road rage, they might have smashed and flattened the poor reptile.

Ironically, on that day luck and ignorance paid off. But this is the exception – not the rule.