马路斗士_徒手斗士

马路斗士由刀豆文库小编整理，希望给你工作、学习、生活带来方便，猜你可能喜欢“徒手斗士”。

戴夫·巴里在美国以独特的幽默和对现实社会的戏讽而备受推崇，他有五部作品曾先后名列《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜。是一位颇为成功的专栏记者，一九八三年起在《迈阿密先驱报》供职。他的作品大多反映了当今社会的热点问题，如毒品走私，儿童保护，政府腐败等等，他犀利的笔调，敏锐的观察，诙谐的文风给许多读者留下了深刻的印象。美国普利策奖咨询委员会经过层层筛选，于一九八八年将新闻评论奖授予巴里。

Road Warrior马路斗士

By Dave Barry

徐正星 译

If you do much driving on our nation’s highways, you’ve probably noticed that, more and more often, bullets are coming through your windshield.This is a common sign of(1)Road Rage, which the opinion-makers in the news media have decided is a serious problem, currently ranking just behind global warming and several points ahead of Asia.How widespread is Road Rage? To answer that question, researchers for the National Institute of Traffic Safety recently did a study in which they drove on the［1］ interstate highway system in a specially-equipped observation van.By the third day, they were deliberately running other motorists off the road.“These people are MORONS!” was their official report.That is the main cause of Road Rage: ［2］the realization that many of your fellow motorists have the same brain structure as a cashew.The most common example, of course, is the motorist who feels a need to drive in the left-hand, or “paing” lane—even though they are going slower than everybody else.Nobody knows why these motorists do this.Maybe they belong to some kind of religious 1)cult that believes the right lane is sacred and must never come in direct contact with tires.Maybe one time, years ago, these motorists happened to be driving in the left lane when their favorite song came on the radio, so they’ve driven over there ever since, in hopes that the radio will play that song again.But whatever makes these people drive this way, there’s nothing you can do about it.You can 2)honk at them, but it will have no effect.People have been honking at them for years: It’s a normal part of their environment.They’ve decided that, for some mysterious reason, wherever they drive, there is honking.They choose not to ponder this mystery any further, lest they overburden their cashews.I am very familiar with this problem, because I live and drive in Miami, which proudly 3)bills itself as The Inappropriate-Lane-Driving Capital Of The World, a place where the left lane is thought of 4)not so much as a thoroughfare but as a public recreational area, where motorists feel free to stop, hold family reunions, barbecue pigs, play volleyball, etc.Compounding this problem is another common type of Miami motorist: the aggreive young male whose car has a sound system so powerful that the driver must go faster than the speed of sound at all times;because otherwise the nuclear ba notes 5)emanating from his 6)rear speakers will catch up with him and cause his head to explode.So the tiny minority of us Miami drivers who actually qualify as normal find ourselves constantly being trapped behind people drifting along on the interstate at the speed of diseased 7)livestock, while at the same time we are being 8)tailgated and occasionally bumped from behind by 9)testosterone-10)deranged youths who got their driver training from watching the space-fighter battle scenes in Star Wars.And of course nobody EVER signals or yields;and people are CONSTANTLY cutting us off;and AFTER A WHILE WE START TO FEEL SOME RAGE, OK? YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT, MISTER NEWS MEDIA OPINION-MAKER?

In addition to Road Rage, I frequently experience Parking Lot Rage;which occurs when I pull into a crowded supermarket parking lot and I see people get into their cars, clearly ready to leave, so I stop my car and wait for them to 11)vacate the spot, and...nothing happens!They just stay there!WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING IN THERE?!COOKING DINNER?

When I finally get into the supermarket, I often experience Shopping Cart Rage.This is caused by the people—and you just KNOW these are the same people who always drive in the left-hand lane—who routinely manage, by careful placement, to block the entire aisle with a single shopping cart.If we really want to keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States, we should employ Miami residents armed with shopping carts;we’d only need about two dozen to block the entire Mexican border.What makes the supermarket 12)congestion even worse is that shoppers are taking longer and longer to decide what to buy, because every product in America now comes in an insane number of styles and sizes.For example, I recently went to the supermarket to get orange juice.For just one brand of orange juice, Tropicana, I had to decide whether I wanted Original, Home Style, Pulp Plus, Double Vitamin C, Calcium, or Old-Fashioned;I also had to decide whether I wanted the 16-ounce, 32-ounce, 64-ounce, 96-ounce, or six-pack size.This is WAY too many product choices.It caused me to experience Too Many Product Choices Rage.I would have called Tropicana and complained, but I probably would have wound up experiencing Automated Phone Answering System Rage(“…For questions about Pulp Plus in the 32-ounce size, pre 23.For questions about Pulp Plus in the 64-ounce size, pre 24.For questions about...”).My point is that there are many cause for rage in our modern world;and if we’re going to avoid unneceary violence, we all need to “keep our cool.” So let’s try to be more considerate, OK? Otherwise I will kill you.1)cult [] n.一群信徒

2)honk [] v.机动车辆的喇叭声

3)bill [] v.宣布，公告

4)not so much as 与其说是„不如说是„

5)emanate [] v.散发，发出

6)rear [] adj.后面的, 背面的，后方的7）livestock [] n.家畜，牲畜

8）tailgate [] v.太近地跟随另一辆车

9）testosterone [] n.[生化][药] 睾丸激素

10）deranged [] adj.疯狂的11）vacate [] v.腾出，空出

12）congestion [] n.拥塞，充血

温馨提示

（1）Road Rage 是用来描述某些驾车人在一种不可克制的狂怒状态下做出的一些冒进或暴力性的举动。通常人们认为，这些人开车时会大动肝火则是因为其他的驾车人侵犯了他们的“行路权利”，比如说不适当的超车、抢道等。盛怒之下，这些人就会做出一些冒犯的举动：轻微者如不停地向对方按喇叭，用高光去闪对方的眼睛，向对方做一个污辱性的手式或是骂上几句难听的话；严重者则可能会停下来寻求“武力解决”，用车子撞击对方，以至于造成严重伤亡事故。根据美国国家公路安全局的统计，在美国有半数以上的驾车人都曾经遇到过“公路暴力”的袭击，每年更有成千上万的人因此而死于非命。在“公路暴力”涉及到的伤亡事件中，受害者以十几岁到20几岁的年轻人占绝大多数，小资料

［1］Interstate Highway System 州际高速公路，正式称呼为纪念艾森豪威尔全国州际及国防公路系统(Dwight D.Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways)。是美国公路系统的一部分，大多属高速公路，全线至少四线行车。自1956年开始建筑，至1991年完工。系统全长68,500 公里，覆盖除阿拉斯加州及波多黎各外各个州份。

［2］ …as a cashew 在此句中，作者把开车者的大脑比作腰果，含义是腰果非常脆弱，轻轻一捏就碎，而开车者的大脑也很简单，经不起复杂的思考，以此用腰果作比喻。

如果你常在本国公路上开车，就可能已经注意到，子弹飕飕穿过车窗的险情是越发多了起来。这是公路暴力的常见表现，新闻媒体的舆论制造者已决定将它列为目前仅次于全球变暖的严重问题，比亚洲问题还要靠前几个排名。

公路暴力现象到底有多普遍呢？为了回答这个问题，国家交通安全协会的研究人员最近做了一项研究，他们驾驶一辆装备独特的观察车行驶在洲际高速公路上。到了研究的第三天，他们故意把其它开车者从公路上逼走。

“这些人都是笨蛋！”他们在正式报告中这样写道。

认为许多别的司机都大脑简单——这正是造成公路暴力的主要原因。当然，一个最典型的例子就是，这些掌方向盘的人觉得非得在左车道，或是超车道开车不可，即使他们的车速比其他车都要慢。没人知道这些司机这么做原因何在。也许他们是某种狂热的宗教信徒，坚信右车道神圣无比，决不能与车胎直接接触。或许因为在多年前的某一天，这些司机行驶在左车道时，收音机恰巧播放了他们最爱听的歌，所以打那时起他们便只在左车道开车，希望收音机再次响起那首动听的歌。但不管是什么原因让这些司机如此驾车，对此你只能是望车兴叹。你对他们按喇叭，但那只是对牛弹琴。这招已用了好些年头了：反正他们认为周围有噪音是一

件很正常的事。他们觉得，由于某种难以理解的原因，不管在哪开车，都会有喇叭声。他们决定不再对这个迷冥思苦想了，免得给自己的简单大脑增加负担。我对这个问题是再熟悉不过了，因为我就住在迈阿密，并在那开车。在这个得意地把自己标榜为‘世界错道驾驶首府’的城市里，左车道与其被看成公路倒不如看作是公共娱乐区，在车道内司机可以随意停车，举行家庭聚会、烤猪、打排球等等。使问题复杂化的是另一类迈阿密司机，在这些狂妄的青年男子车内，音响系统是超强无比，以至于自己必须超音速驾驶，否则从后喇叭发射出的核低音会追上来把他脑袋炸开花。

这样一来，迈阿密像我这样仅存的少数合格司机在州际公路上常被逼得处于进退两难的窘境：前有病牛拉破车似的爬行车挡着，后又被那些激素分泌错乱的年轻人撵地鸡飞狗跳。这些年轻人，仗着从看星球大战太空飞船格斗中学来的驾驶技术，在公路上横冲直撞。理所当然的是，不但没有一个人打信号示意或发扬谦让精神，我们还总是被人超车。老这么干，我们开始抓狂了知道吗？那又怎么样，你有意见吗新闻舆论制造者先生？

除了公路暴力，我还经常经历停车场暴力。我把车开进拥挤的超市停车场，看见有人坐进他们的车，摆出一幅要离开的样子，于是我停下车等他们空出车位。接着„„，那车根本动都不动！他们就那样待在车里！他们到底在车里搞什么鬼名堂？！做晚饭吗？

总算进了超市，我又常常碰到购物车暴力。是由这类人造成的——不用我多说你也知道就是那帮在左车道开车的人。他们能按惯例技艺高超地把一辆购物车堵住整个过道。如果我们真想阻止非法移民进入美国的话，就真该雇佣以推购物车为武装的迈阿密市民，只需要大概24个人就可以封锁整个墨西哥边界。

促使超市堵塞情况更严重的是购物者花费越来越长的时间选购商品，因为现在美国以每种商品的样式和大小分类的数量多得让人发疯。拿我最近去超市买橙汁为例，仅一种纯品康纳牌的橙汁，我就不得不选择是买原味的、家庭型的、加果肉型的、双倍维C型的、加钙型的还是老式型的。我还不得不决定是买16盎司的、32盎司的、64盎司的、96盎司的还是买六盒装的。就这样，商品选择的余地多了去了，如此又让我体验到“过多商品选择暴力”。我本可以打电话给纯品康纳公司投诉，但我很可能遭遇“自动应答电话系统暴力”。（“„„询问有关32盎司加果肉型请按23，询问有关64盎司加果肉型请按24，询问„„”）

我认为，现代社会造成人们发狂的原因很多，想避免不必要的暴力，我们都需要“保持冷静”。那就让我们多为别人着想一点，行不行？不然，你就准备受死吧。