A few months ago I’m visiting my radio broadcaster friend Vic Fernandes in Barbados. We’re in town one day in Vic’s car, and I notice him stopping occasionally to let somebody standing at the side of the road to cross. No crosswalk, no junction, no hand signal…person just standing there, but Vic stops and traffic going the other way stops, too. The pedestrian calmly steps off the curb, passes between the two stopped cars, and steps up on the other side. The first couple of times he does this I assume it’s someone he knows or recognizes, but after the fifth or sixth time it’s obvious that Fernandes, as popular as he is in the island, can’t possibly know all these people; something else is going on here. After several stops it hit me: in Barbados, this is standard driver courtesy to roadside pedestrians, often in the middle of the block. I mention this to Vic and he confirms, indeed, he doesn’t know the people. I remember saying
