The Weaponized Car

Perhaps I am noticing things because I recently had to consume and memorize the 93 page Drivers Manual so I could take the Department of Motor Vehicles written test for the first time in what I think has been at least fifteen years. (Happy to say I passed, and happy to say I will have a new picture!) I have got to say, though, that the drivers in Los Angeles (though I suspect the same is true in New York, Boston and all those cities which probably resemble Skinner mazes more than civilized metropolises) seem to take particular delight in ignoring all regulatory, hazard and warning signs. Unfortunately, they are doing so while careening in 4,000 mass of metal and plastic.

This day, alone, I saw two people zip past a decidedly red light, and two, just in front of me, turning left at 4:45 in the usual slog of traffic, though the sign clearly said no turns left as of 4 p.m. It is much the same every day, adding in passing without signalling,  ignoring any idea of a "three second behind the car in front of you" rule, and making right or left turns from middle lanes, also without benefit of signal.

I remember the quaint days of courtesy.  On my very first visit to La La Land, when in New York, the idea of letting a pedestrian cross either at a light or at an intersection without traffic control, the drivers always stopped. It was positively mesmerizing, and to tell the truth, I didn't quite trust it. Once I moved to Los Angeles, and for many years thereafter, the drivers and pedestrians existed in a zen like peacefulness for which the West Coast was a model. I can't tell you when it changed, but suddenly horns were honking like I was back East, and pedestrians as well as those drivers who actually followed the law became target practice. The demyelination of psychological nerves of a society in decay has given us the "weaponized car", among its other symptomologies.

Regulation, and 93 pages tells me there is a lot of it, along with all sorts of financial and legal consequences (e.g. littering, 1000.00 fine that a cop won't bother with while he is doing the pit maneuver on some guy in a car evading him after he ran a stop sign all on TV for our viewing pleasure) makes precisely no difference.

And then, of course, in California, which is wildly concerned with drunk driving (as it should be of course) and the Blood Alcohol level of everything from a teenager to an Uber driver, has legalized recreational marijuana.  Oh, of course, they remind the populace that it is illegal to use and drive still. Tell that to the guy in front of me who was blowing the smoke of his joint out of the SUV in front of me one time recently. Tell that to the guy who was smoking weed while we were all waiting to get into the DMV for our various tests. They already know is states like Colorado, which legalized marijuana before California did, that there is an uptick in DUI's, or as I will call it, "DUWI", "Driving Under Weed Influence". Seems kind of like adding to the arsenal rather than limiting it.

But to me the bigger problem is the attitude of my fellow citizens. It isn't merely that they believe the rules do not apply to them. It is that they have so little regard for other people's lives (they have a sense of invincibility borne of their narcissism). The car, not unlike the gun that is currently the subject of cyclical discussion, gives this increasing subset of an already frail humanity, a sense of unlimited power and control. They certainly have the power to kill. What they don't have is the control they imagine as they cut and weave among us.

The long-term solution seems impossible in light of the level of regression. For that some of us look to a Higher Power recognizing that man always fails as the self-designated center of all things. The short term solution though is rather the Giulani model of the "broken windows" days in New York.

Small things matter. When someone spits on the sidewalk, there should be a ticket. When someone turns left at 4:45 where the sign says you cannot beginning at 4 should get a ticket. Every time.
No discussion. And for every small thing that is ignored because there are "bigger" crimes need to have the attention of police authorities or other traffic authorities. There is, manifestly, the slippery slope. We are nearly at the end of it going into the muck. 

But then, in California, at least, the authorities are trying to ban cars by their policies. Then everybody can go to the subway, where, naturally, there will be no crime as people are much nicer there. And if you believe that, I have a bridge in New York I can have imported to Los Angeles.