The Danger of Road Sirens

After wondering for years why Redeemer’s pedestrians opt to walk on the road, I think I’ve finally discovered the reason: Road Sirens.

Road Sirens are invisible enchantresses that frequent roadways, seductively urging pedestrians to walk in droves along the road as if it were a footpath. Like the beautiful but carnivorous Sirens of Ulysses’ day, Road Sirens have strong, sultry voices that lure unsuspecting travelers to their doom; while pedestrians wander along the road absorbed by the Sirens’ music, cars filled with large men hefting tire irons idle impatiently behind them.

Not everyone can hear these enchantresses. I believe there is a strong correlation between the age, maturity, and lifestyle of the people who hear the Sirens’ call the loudest. Responsible people rarely do. Neither do regular drivers. However, skateboarders and the criminally insane often do give in to the call of the Road Sirens.

This, by the way, is a problem that dates back to the Bible. In the Old Testament, where what you would call recognizable roads were a scarce thing, where you actually had to walk kilometres just to find one, youth wearing I Love Redeemer t-shirts flocked to them in order to be run over by chariots. This became so common that it prompted one biblical author to write, “Even as he walks along the road, the fool lacks sense and shows everyone how stupid he is” (Ecclesiastes 10:3).

What’s worse, there are a number of terrifying implications to being a road-walker. The theological: how can we as Christians ask others to walk along the straight and narrow, when we ourselves flagrantly obstruct cars by taking the wide road? The practical: what employer wants to hire a convicted road-walker, someone known for taking shortcuts in their everyday life? The obvious: body casts are rarely fashionable.

If anyone you care about listens to the call of the Road Sirens on a regular basis, do the most loving thing you can do: mock them. Seriously, take them down a peg. The call of the Road Siren is an appeal to pride; those who walk in the middle of the road are obviously implying that the sidewalk is not big enough for their egos. Which is all well and good until a speeding car implies that their bloated egos are too big for the road.

The Crown reserves the right to edit or remove any comment that:

• is libelous, threatening, obscene, or constitutes hate speech
• directly and deliberately insults other posters
• is promotional or commercial in nature