Bumper car wimps

August 28, 2008 - 8:48 AM by David

With summer winding down, we decided to treat our seven-year-old to a day at Superland. Situated among the sandy expanse near the Rishon Lezion beach, Superland is your typical outdoor amusement park, even sprawling by Israeli standards.

With some prime attractions like the obligatory roller coaster, a frightening looking bungee-style drop built for three, and a log water slide, there’s plenty to do, and because it’s spaced out, there’s not a huge line for any ride.

And of course, what amusement park could be complete without the bumper cars. Matan and his friend Nir, were too young to ride their own, so my wife joined Matan and I partnered with Nir, as we ran out onto the game floor with a mixture or kids, adults, teens – both Jews and Arabs – jostling for the right car.

We all know the clichés about Israeli drivers – how reckless, aggressive and unsympathetic they are on the roads. And we all know that it’s 100% true. But when the bell rang, the cars started moving, an amazing thing happened – the Israeli driver became a wimp!

Given the chance to legally bash into each other, without any ramifications, most of the drivers pussyfooted around the perimeter, actually trying to avoid each other. Meanwhile, I was telling Nir, who had control of the steering wheel, to ram everything in sight.

When he did so, we got looks from the other drivers like, we had somehow ran into them intentionally on the road. Hello! That’s the point of the ride! Slowly, they began getting into the spirit of things, and by the end of the three minutes, most of the drivers were behaving like they were passing cars on blind curves on Jordan Valley road at 100 km. an hour.

Now that’s the Israeli I know and love.

Share with others