2003-02-19

 
My colleague at work.

My roommate and I caught on the news two nights ago a story about a boy who was killed by a woman in a SUV while his father was using an ATM; apparently she pressed the gas instead of the breaks while she was pulling into a parking space. I found out the next day that the father was a fellow that I work with, Alan Remos. Alan is in the hospital with two broken legs, and his son (nine years old I think) is dead. I am dumbfounded. I know that when bad things circumstantially occur out of our control (call it fate), we end up looking for something or someone to blame, to try to imagine how it might have been prevented. I would not say that the woman is largely at fault (goofing at the wheel is as easy as brain-farting by forgetting your own phone number), but I am impelled to think that we should not be having so many people driving cars. A fellow at work today pointed out to me that it is quite easy for myself to reject car culture because I'm young and single and not tied down to anything (thank goodness!). However, someone with a family and bills to pay and a job to go to may feel that life is impossible without a car. I think this is the lesson that we need to learn. This woman probably knows, deep inside, that her mind was always capable of misfiring the wrong neurons while driving; this same very thought is another point on my list of why I refuse to drive; I don't trust myself -- heck sometimes I don't even trust myself on my own bike (see my entry, "The Car I Dented", below on 2/13/03 for a perfect example.) Yet I do not use any drugs and am an avid reader and did well in school. Clearly I can't use "I'm a moron" as an excuse (as I often do)... Some people just don't have perfect attentions (I doze off during long -- yet enjoyable -- lectures, I left my library book on the train (see 2/10), I goof up dates (see 2/16))... While I do not think the answer is to chemically fix these problems (I hate drinking coffee to stay awake when I use the computer at work, but do so just so I don't get fired), I do think that absentmindedness is a serous thing when people take the task of driving so casually. The very fact that there has not been a federal ban on driving while talking on the cell phone is preposterous! All of our lives are in each others' hands when we come near a road; when attention is diverted by the phone, it is much easier to slip up and press the gas instead of the breaks, or to forget to check blind spots for pedestrians or other vehicles. Just a month ago, even, a public transit bus crashed into a private residence! (luckily no one was murdered then). I think people need to begin to view automobile driving as a privilege and not a necessity. Unfortunately, that limits where people must live because in some places it is simply too difficult to find a job without driving. Personally, I'll take a dense city with good public transit, or an organic farm community (aka commune) any day before I settle in a place where a car is almost-necessary. Hence, I have a week and a half to get out of San Diego. I just hope me and my bicycle make it to that date...
posted by MM 5:39 PM