MAP 150

Last Tuesday I was in a car accident in Minneapolis. It wasn’t my fault, and it wasn’t serious, but it was interesting. It happened next to Bob’s Java Hut in Minneapolis– my car was parked there at the stop sign in the picture.
I went in to buy a cup of coffee, and the kind person behind the counter said that the coffee was on her. Really?? Yes, she replied, these accidents happen here all the time. Same time of day? Yes– (I happened to be at this corner because I needed to go south on Lyndale from Lake, and left turns are prohibited from 4-6; this was the first path back to Lyndale)– lots of school buses restricting vision and my guess, lots of traffic winding through from the prohibited left turn.

Turns out lots of people at Bob’s Java Hut were aware of the frequent accidents. They also knew that it would take the police an hour or more to show up– “they have more important things to attend to.” It would seem to me that paying attention to what these folks know in a coffee shop could reduce accidents and help the police attend to more critical matters. I didn’t even bother to ask whether anyone tried to contact the city about this though. I think I know the answer.

As a post script, there were three cars involved. One was driven by a young African American. Apparently the police asked whether he had anything on him (after an hour or more of waiting, you’d like to think he would have gotten rid of it if that were the case.) His girlfiend complained that she sees this all the time. Being Iraqi, she gets it too. She didn’t want to call it racism, but clearly she thought it was. I said, call it what it is.

As I was leaving, she motioned to the driver of the first car and said, “Those damn Somalis, They come to this country and they don’t know how to drive.”