My dads first piece of advice to me when I got my drivers license (one as a youngster I stupidly ignored) when driving act every moment as if every car around you is about to do something incredibly stupid
I really don't think we've (at least the US) wrestled with the moral implications of modern driving. The problem with any system at scale is that cost and responsibility become diffuse while benefit becomes concentrated, and the underlying costs become so baked into the baseline that anything that tries to shift the calculus comes across as "taking."
But you're absolutely right: even when used *exactly as intended* a car is a machine that internalizes benefit to the few at the intentional expense of the many, and that alone justifies a very heavy hand of regulation. But it should also imply a very strong commitment to individual responsibility to both find more ways to bear one's own cost and to mitigate it further, and we just don't have a strong culture of that, unfortunately. Which is horrible: in virtually all cases of vehicular violence, the full moral burden of the act falls on the driver, and I think if we really got that we'd jump at the opportunity to take a "safe systems" approach rather than just shrugging and writing 40k people a year (plus many more life changing injuries) as "the cost of *my personal individual* freedom, paid for by those around me."
Great title and reflection. I’m struck by the fact that in other countries I’ve traveled, Spain and England come to mind, drivers seem more ready to stop at a moment’s notice for pedestrians. I’m sure someone has tried to figure out why, particularly given both have roundabouts that are a sort of equivalent of right on red, but I suspect it has to do with some mixture of design, driver training and penalties, and the likelihood that the driver too is often a pedestrian.
I think drivers being pedestrians too would be very helpful. Many adults I know hardly ever walk anywhere, certainly not to run their errands or after dark.
I agree with this. I live in a city and regularly walk in the neighborhood. I’ve almost been hit many times, especially when crossing alleyways and on certain corners. As a result, I’m much more mindful as a driver in those same situations.
I more or less agree, but it also implies a sense of realism in the making of the rules. There are corners where the are NEVER any pedestrians and you CAN see if there is oncoming traffic. On THAT corner right on red is OK. If there are many such corners, right on red unless otherwise marked (or vice versa) makes sense.
I'm really thinking of Colombia where the speed limits are ridiculously low on major highways, they do not provide useful advice about where slower speeds are actually desirable. The laws are and should be ignored. I think WDC does it right; the only problem is there are not enough speed cameras to deter violators.
Tell your priest that a different version of the joke has the man say, "Muriel, you know we haven' t been married 40 years," and she says "And you know you were not wearing your seat belt."
This dovetails with a sign I saw on the highway today, reminding us all “Don’t Drive Drowsy”.
And I thought to myself that, of course, that’s the ideal! But if you are tired and need to get somewhere, what else are you going to do? It’s so terribly unsafe, but as a parent I have driven tired, trying to get my kids home, SO MANY times. Because there’s usually no other option - even trying to take a nap in the car won’t work if you have kids going “hey mom? Mom? Mom!”
And of course I would never operate any other heavy machinery in that state. But we’ve put ourselves into an environment where we CAN’T treat cars with the respect and safe handling they deserve.
Good piece, good analogy. I have a more charitable interpretation of your pastor's joke, or rather the reaction to it. As I get older, I realize how common drunk driving actually is. When I was a kid it was almost unimaginable to me, obviously no one would ever do that, right? But NHTSA says 31% of vehicle fatalities involve alcohol impairment.
Friend of mine teaches Sunday school, essentially like a kindergarten. While playing with Legos, one little guy constructed a toy pistol. Then he ran around pointing it at others and yelling “Bang!” She told him it was ok to make a Lego gun but that he should never point it at anyone, even if only a toy. She’s pretty smart sometimes.
One difference is that as far as I can tell more people do not die from falls. But also the only person injured in a fall is the person falling. Driving accidents frequently kill and injure other people. That is a fundamental difference. It's the same exact reason firearm safety is taken so seriously.
Frequently? If more people die from falls than auto accidents, if we're talking a death every 75,000 miles driven - that is enough to drive twice around the Earth - I'd paint US auto deaths as anything but frequent.
Proud to be the inspiration for this entire post. But I'm confused. Are you coming around to my way of thinking on this? I could be misreading this post entirely, but honestly this sounds like a longer, more thoughtful way of saying what you seem to think you're refuting?:
"Traffic rules are based on what’s safe in certain circumstances. They’re judgments or guidelines. It’s stupid to follow the speed limit on an empty straightaway, or come to a full stop at a wide empty intersection, or sit at a red light before turning left when there’s no cop and I can see a mile away. You want to turn the art of driving into a robotic rule-following endeavor. You don’t believe in freedom!"
So that's the short, strawman version, very similar to what I wrote a few days ago. As I said then (and in addition to this strawman version), I take responsibility for the safe operation of my vehicle at all times. Sometimes that means following the vehicle code (or what have you by state) to the letter. Sometimes that means I go through a red light or drive 90 mph. This is, indeed, very similar to how well-trained firearms operators treat their weapons (I personally have never owned or fired a gun, for what that's worth). In doing this, I've never injured anyone, and never will injure anyone. In this way I achieve the policy objective of the vehicle code and traffic laws without the need for slavishness. None of these are mutually exclusive.
I agree that operating a vehicle is a serious responsibility under all circumstances. We all slip up, as I did last weekend; I had stopped at the bike shop on my way to the park to pick up some socks (forgot mine) and then decided to go right across the street to a gas station for some snacks. The road was empty, and so I decided to just nonchalantly cross. I was wrong, and had missed another car that was heading my way, who did not hit me, but did honk at me. That was entirely my fault, and I managed to apologize non-verbally. If that had led to a collision, I'd have been the first to admit I was responsible and would pay for whatever damage resulted.
It's true that money can't necessarily fully compensate a person if they're injured. If they have a neck strain and some headaches, probably it can. If they break their arm, maybe not. If they break their leg, probably not. This, again, is just one more reason why taking responsibility (not just for your vehicle, but in all aspects of life) is so important. It's not necessarily enough to have sufficient insurance to cover an injury. It's far better that it never happen in the first place. The remedies which the law provides are the best it can do, but frequently not good enough to actually restore the parties to their condition before the wrong was committed, which is the objective even if it often can't be achieved. Criminal punishment is great in many ways, but will never restore the dead to life, for example.
But that's exactly my point, and I think yours at this point too: if I had been taking it as seriously as I should have, and as seriously as I do when I'm considering whether to go through a red light (when I violate reds intentionally, I don't just blow through them; I slow or even stop to assess safety and then make a decision), it would never have happened. I didn't need traffic laws to be wrong outside the bike shop, and I don't need traffic laws to be right about going through a red.
Look, I won't argue that there are no edge cases, but I'll reiterate that generally speaking, what you see as blind rule-following I see as the work of forming a habit in yourself. It doesn't mean you're not aware of your surroundings or that on occasion safety might actually demand you break the rule as written. Sure. But we're so far from treating the car like that. I guess I'd say we have to learn the rules down pat before we have the "right" to break them.
My dads first piece of advice to me when I got my drivers license (one as a youngster I stupidly ignored) when driving act every moment as if every car around you is about to do something incredibly stupid
I really don't think we've (at least the US) wrestled with the moral implications of modern driving. The problem with any system at scale is that cost and responsibility become diffuse while benefit becomes concentrated, and the underlying costs become so baked into the baseline that anything that tries to shift the calculus comes across as "taking."
But you're absolutely right: even when used *exactly as intended* a car is a machine that internalizes benefit to the few at the intentional expense of the many, and that alone justifies a very heavy hand of regulation. But it should also imply a very strong commitment to individual responsibility to both find more ways to bear one's own cost and to mitigate it further, and we just don't have a strong culture of that, unfortunately. Which is horrible: in virtually all cases of vehicular violence, the full moral burden of the act falls on the driver, and I think if we really got that we'd jump at the opportunity to take a "safe systems" approach rather than just shrugging and writing 40k people a year (plus many more life changing injuries) as "the cost of *my personal individual* freedom, paid for by those around me."
Great title and reflection. I’m struck by the fact that in other countries I’ve traveled, Spain and England come to mind, drivers seem more ready to stop at a moment’s notice for pedestrians. I’m sure someone has tried to figure out why, particularly given both have roundabouts that are a sort of equivalent of right on red, but I suspect it has to do with some mixture of design, driver training and penalties, and the likelihood that the driver too is often a pedestrian.
I think drivers being pedestrians too would be very helpful. Many adults I know hardly ever walk anywhere, certainly not to run their errands or after dark.
I agree with this. I live in a city and regularly walk in the neighborhood. I’ve almost been hit many times, especially when crossing alleyways and on certain corners. As a result, I’m much more mindful as a driver in those same situations.
I more or less agree, but it also implies a sense of realism in the making of the rules. There are corners where the are NEVER any pedestrians and you CAN see if there is oncoming traffic. On THAT corner right on red is OK. If there are many such corners, right on red unless otherwise marked (or vice versa) makes sense.
I'm really thinking of Colombia where the speed limits are ridiculously low on major highways, they do not provide useful advice about where slower speeds are actually desirable. The laws are and should be ignored. I think WDC does it right; the only problem is there are not enough speed cameras to deter violators.
Tell your priest that a different version of the joke has the man say, "Muriel, you know we haven' t been married 40 years," and she says "And you know you were not wearing your seat belt."
This dovetails with a sign I saw on the highway today, reminding us all “Don’t Drive Drowsy”.
And I thought to myself that, of course, that’s the ideal! But if you are tired and need to get somewhere, what else are you going to do? It’s so terribly unsafe, but as a parent I have driven tired, trying to get my kids home, SO MANY times. Because there’s usually no other option - even trying to take a nap in the car won’t work if you have kids going “hey mom? Mom? Mom!”
And of course I would never operate any other heavy machinery in that state. But we’ve put ourselves into an environment where we CAN’T treat cars with the respect and safe handling they deserve.
Good piece, good analogy. I have a more charitable interpretation of your pastor's joke, or rather the reaction to it. As I get older, I realize how common drunk driving actually is. When I was a kid it was almost unimaginable to me, obviously no one would ever do that, right? But NHTSA says 31% of vehicle fatalities involve alcohol impairment.
Somehow I feel like a Catholic congregation should be more wary of the ol' "everybody does it" mentality.
Friend of mine teaches Sunday school, essentially like a kindergarten. While playing with Legos, one little guy constructed a toy pistol. Then he ran around pointing it at others and yelling “Bang!” She told him it was ok to make a Lego gun but that he should never point it at anyone, even if only a toy. She’s pretty smart sometimes.
More people die from falls than auto accidents
Shall we treat every step as though we have a loaded gun? That would be silly. Same.with with treating driving like that.
If yellow lights are taxing, y'll need to adjust your attitude. It's just a yellow light. Stop or go you will get there in more or less the same.time.
One difference is that as far as I can tell more people do not die from falls. But also the only person injured in a fall is the person falling. Driving accidents frequently kill and injure other people. That is a fundamental difference. It's the same exact reason firearm safety is taken so seriously.
Frequently? If more people die from falls than auto accidents, if we're talking a death every 75,000 miles driven - that is enough to drive twice around the Earth - I'd paint US auto deaths as anything but frequent.
Proud to be the inspiration for this entire post. But I'm confused. Are you coming around to my way of thinking on this? I could be misreading this post entirely, but honestly this sounds like a longer, more thoughtful way of saying what you seem to think you're refuting?:
"Traffic rules are based on what’s safe in certain circumstances. They’re judgments or guidelines. It’s stupid to follow the speed limit on an empty straightaway, or come to a full stop at a wide empty intersection, or sit at a red light before turning left when there’s no cop and I can see a mile away. You want to turn the art of driving into a robotic rule-following endeavor. You don’t believe in freedom!"
So that's the short, strawman version, very similar to what I wrote a few days ago. As I said then (and in addition to this strawman version), I take responsibility for the safe operation of my vehicle at all times. Sometimes that means following the vehicle code (or what have you by state) to the letter. Sometimes that means I go through a red light or drive 90 mph. This is, indeed, very similar to how well-trained firearms operators treat their weapons (I personally have never owned or fired a gun, for what that's worth). In doing this, I've never injured anyone, and never will injure anyone. In this way I achieve the policy objective of the vehicle code and traffic laws without the need for slavishness. None of these are mutually exclusive.
I agree that operating a vehicle is a serious responsibility under all circumstances. We all slip up, as I did last weekend; I had stopped at the bike shop on my way to the park to pick up some socks (forgot mine) and then decided to go right across the street to a gas station for some snacks. The road was empty, and so I decided to just nonchalantly cross. I was wrong, and had missed another car that was heading my way, who did not hit me, but did honk at me. That was entirely my fault, and I managed to apologize non-verbally. If that had led to a collision, I'd have been the first to admit I was responsible and would pay for whatever damage resulted.
It's true that money can't necessarily fully compensate a person if they're injured. If they have a neck strain and some headaches, probably it can. If they break their arm, maybe not. If they break their leg, probably not. This, again, is just one more reason why taking responsibility (not just for your vehicle, but in all aspects of life) is so important. It's not necessarily enough to have sufficient insurance to cover an injury. It's far better that it never happen in the first place. The remedies which the law provides are the best it can do, but frequently not good enough to actually restore the parties to their condition before the wrong was committed, which is the objective even if it often can't be achieved. Criminal punishment is great in many ways, but will never restore the dead to life, for example.
But that's exactly my point, and I think yours at this point too: if I had been taking it as seriously as I should have, and as seriously as I do when I'm considering whether to go through a red light (when I violate reds intentionally, I don't just blow through them; I slow or even stop to assess safety and then make a decision), it would never have happened. I didn't need traffic laws to be wrong outside the bike shop, and I don't need traffic laws to be right about going through a red.
Look, I won't argue that there are no edge cases, but I'll reiterate that generally speaking, what you see as blind rule-following I see as the work of forming a habit in yourself. It doesn't mean you're not aware of your surroundings or that on occasion safety might actually demand you break the rule as written. Sure. But we're so far from treating the car like that. I guess I'd say we have to learn the rules down pat before we have the "right" to break them.