Friends who are martial artists and fighters share a common sentiment – they’d rather fight in the controlled setting of competition rather than in a street fight. Because in street fights, there are no rules. Grappling and striking techniques may give you an advantage, but a rogue steel pipe to the head can offset the ability to throw a mean and crisp right cross from the hip.
Due to its unpredictable no-holds barred nature, street fights have got to be among the worst ways to resolve on-road disputes. Yesterday was quite a busy day for viral videos featuring some ugly brawls from the streets of Metro Manila.
There’s this. The video of two guys, one armed with a screw driver, another armed with a steel pipe going at it in the middle of street, while people just look on, with traffic backed up pretty badly.
And there’s this. Another brawl involving a pedestrian and a Makati Parking officer. Not as violent as the previous one but ugly nonetheless.
Some people are commenting on the seeming apathy of onlookers just letting those involved slug things out. I don’t blame them. While the whole social media-induced, video-first-help-later mentality perpetuates among those of the Instagram generation and beyond, getting into the mix when two street fighters (and not the video game) are at it is very dangerous.
Since those typically involved in these brawls are hotheads in the first place, blindness from blood lust is highly likely. Hindi mangingilala. There are plenty of stories of well-meaning people being killed just because they had best intentions of breaking fights up.
Sure, road rage has been examined as a medical condition but “road rage” isn’t technically recognized by the DSM as a mental disorder. Still, I wouldn’t act as magnanimous as claiming not to have been pissed off while driving. There are just too many assholes on the road not feel anything.
But this brings us to the important point. Why reach the point of blood and gore? Trying to ultimately resolve road issues through physical violence ultimately accomplishes nothing. Why gamble with your life? How about just flipping at someone or mouthing something off in the privacy of your own vehicle? That might give you a sense of release or a degree of satisfaction not to boil over. Why seek blood and brain matter?
Maybe all this violence is also a reflection of the environment. It really is a concrete jungle out there and things appear to be only getting worse. The sad thing is, we’re all in this anyway. We’re all experiencing traffic. We’re all going over bad roads. What makes us think that pipping the car next to you for a second for that turn would make it all better? Attitude goes a long way to deal with a fucked up environment.
Discipline, humility, and a general sense of not being a dick goes a long way. We got to be better. Not just as drivers, but as a Filipinos, we got to be better.