Crisis? What crisis?

Posted Feb 16, 2012 By Charles Gordon

That was an amazing photo in the paper, showing a long string of buses backed up on the Transitway, while police and OC Transpo people tried to sort out the mess after a crash of two buses during rush hour.

You look at it and empathize immediately - with the people who were injured but also with the people on those other buses. Because you can picture yourself in there, waiting helplessly, wanting to get home. Or out in the cold, waiting for another bus while traffic piles up on Scott Street. Perhaps you can picture yourself angry, yelling at somebody to do something.

The interesting thing is that people didn't seem to be yelling at anybody. The passengers interviewed by local media were the opposite of angry.

"It sucks but at the same time accidents are going to happen regardless so you just got to grin and bear it," one guy told the Citizen, as he waited for another bus.

"There's not much to complain about," said another. "It happens, right?"

"Some people were getting a bit frustrated but most people were pretty calm about it," a woman told CTV Ottawa.

That calmness did not apply to the comments section of news websites, where many people used the occasion to vent spleen about OC Transpo. But they weren't there when it happened - and they wouldn't have been helpful if they were. What matters is that the people in the middle of the crisis seemed patient and accepting.

Canadians are sometimes mocked for having these qualities - as contrasted to the more assertive Americans - but they serve us well in times of stress. It's true that orderliness, some say meekness, is not a characteristic that makes for exciting movies, but those people are the ones you want around you when things fall apart.

I remember a brief power outage in June when the traffic lights went out at the corner of Carling and Woodroffe. That's four lanes in either direction having to move through the intersection with no policeman in sight - at rush hour.

In a different country, known more for its individualism, it would have been a festival of horn-honking, aggressive driving and crushed fenders. Here, it was a spontaneously orchestrated ballet of cars taking turns. No fenders were crushed. Now, afterwards, when the crisis had passed there might have been recriminations in letters to the editor, on websites and open-line radio, but when the situation demanded it, calmness was the order of the day.

Those who were around during the Ice Storm of 1998 will remember that too. Once the crisis had passed and we knew we would survive and get our toasters working again, some people began to complain.

Yet, when the crisis was on, we were patient, we worked together, co-operated, helped other people and generally acted like a real community. This is the enduring memory of that period and it is an accurate one. The bitching came later and we don't think of that so much.

It would be nice to think that a crisis always brings out the best in us. It's probably more accurate to say that it brings out the best in some of us and something less than the best in others. You have only to look at the recent Italian cruise ship disaster to see vivid examples of both types of behaviour.

On a more everyday level, think about what happens when a flight is cancelled. Some people get on with their lives as best they can. Other people yell at the person behind the counter. Those are the ones you don't want behind you at Carling and Woodroffe.