Trail Attitude and Behavior
For most of us, trail riding is all about relaxation and enjoyment. When you leave behind the rigors and repetition of daily life, you can simply savor the experience of being away from it all and sharing the experience with family and friends. The apsolute magic mother nature has created is “AWE” inspiring!
For me …. trying to explain my thoughts about trail attitude and behavior is like having a CRANBERRIES song stuck in your head …. in your head …. in your head …. Zombie….Zombie! (Lol) yep! Some of you won’t get that…. I know… but it’s still funny! And now that song is stuck in your head…(lol).
Seriously….I know what I want to say … but how to write about it so it might help someone is a totally different! Trail etiquette is hard, and we’ve all seen the downside. We’re out on the trail doing our thing, all peaceful and one with nature, when suddenly one of “them” appears and ruins our day with loud music and dangerous behavior.
Your anger flairs…. Words are exchanged, the moment is ruined, and you fume about it for at least a week at a minimum!
You may think that the solution for this is that everyone just needs to obey the rules, and that would certainly help, but the real solution lies in the attitude and behavior WE bring to the trail. No collection of rules is going to make assholes into decent human beings, or make trail sharing perfect and peaceful at all times. Sharing is a complicated process that requires patience and …. tolerance.
This Metaphor of…. Carry-On Luggage is spot on and is a great description of what Im talking about. Bare with me…you’ll get it…I promise!
It’s not hard to see how futile even basic rule-making can be for trails. Just board any commercial airline going anywhere, anytime, and see how many people listen to the speaker announcement to “Please, put your second carry on under the seat.”
Inpending behavior is always the same:
Deferential Decent People …… 10% of people will go further and put both bags under their seat or in the seat-back pouch, because they want to make as much room as possible for others (or they just want all their stuff nearby lol).
Decent People ……70% of people will do exactly that, no more or less, It’s no big deal. It’s not like it’s hard. Why not?
Confused Decent People ……5% will do the wrong thing because they have no idea what’s going on. Maybe they’ve never been on a plane before, or they don’t speak the language, or they’re differently abled? (Easily confused with assholes.)
Assholes ….10% of people will ignore the request and put both bags in the overhead compartment, often sideways, no matter how crowded the flight is (taking their time, making everyone else wait). If confronted, they’ll grumpily do the right thing or defiantly tell you “It’s their right.” forcing others to have their bags checked. (Umm maybe names like Karen or Kevin come to mind??? Lol)
Psychopaths ……5% will put their bags, coat, and every other damn thing they can find in the entirety of the overhead space and then close the bin with it half empty so no one else can use it and so no one jacks with their personal stuff. (It’s a plane…. where is it going to go???)
These same people hike, run, mountain bike, ride horses and trail ride ATVs/SxS’s….. they have pets, carry guns and so on. It’s always the same; a majority go out of their way to make space for others, most just try to be reasonable about it, a few others are clueless, and then there are a bunch of assholes and psychos who ruin it for the rest. (See….I told you …. you’d get it)
I don’t mean this angrily. I just mean peoples attitudes and behaviors are fundamentally going to cause issues, because we are all different and our ideals of having fun,relaxation and being out in nature are DIFFERENT…no matter what, and that’s just the way it is.
When I’m out trail riding, I get frustrated and angered by idiots with the attitude that there the only ones on the trail and there’s no room for the rest of us! No matter how hard I try not to; it’s just annoying to feel constantly threatened by fast-moving metal objects and their inconsistently uncompetent and unsafe drivers or Karen and Kevin who think they rule the world telling me I have no right to be there! Or inconsiderate people who park there tow rigs behind you at a staging parking area with not a care in the world that you can’t get out( one time…I waited over an hour for people to return so I could load up a drive home).
When I’m driving down the trail I hate having to slam on the brakes at every blind corner and nearly run myself off the trail for other OHV’ers who stop and park for whatever reason …. on a blind corner…they have no clue how easy it is to wreck into you or kill myself trying to avoid your incompetence and lack of common sense?. You know you’ve experienced one or maybe all of these scenarios …Maybe the problem in this case isn’t them? Maybe it’s me? It’s the attitude I bring to a situation that is intrinsically imperfect. Maybe helping them get educated about how unsafe this is for both of us is a better attitude then anger?
We all do this to some extent, and the only thing we can do is work on our personal attitude. Try to put ourselves in their shoes. Try to understand their perspective, then take a deep breath and move on. It’s usually not worth holding onto the anger and irritation, because it will just build with each dumb interaction until you might as well be driving in rush hour traffic.
Attitude and Behavior…..just saying!
So do what you can to be a part of the solution not the problem. Use some common sense and pick your battles…
(I always try to pick the ones I have a chance to win)
We can’t change the whole world at once…but a little at a time all at the same time ….. we just might be able too!
Just saying!