When this law was announced, I have to admit, I cheered a little. Only a little: in my world, the punishment for such asinine behaviour would be considerably more severe; but at least the law's heading in the right direction.
Which is why I suspect somebody will soon challenge its constitutionality, on the grounds that police are acting, in effect, as judge, jury, and executioner. I've seen several letters to various editors in this vein: every single one prefaces the concern with something along the lines of, "while I do not support reckless drivers..."
I'd like to meet the people who write these letters, so as I can slap them upside the head.
Police are occasionally required to act as judge, jury, and executioner...sometimes literally. Suppose you are a police officer and you are called to a bank robbery in progress. Upon arrival, you confront the robber, who is waving a gun around and firing wildly. Do you
(a) write the lad a ticket, requiring him to appear in court at some later date, and throw it in his general direction, hoping he might stop firing; or
(b) remove the imminent threat to innocent bystanders and yourself?
To me, the answer's obvious. So the next question is: do you see reckless driving as an imminent threat to innocent motorists, or a mere misdemeanor?
Now, I'm not suggesting the police should just start killing anybody they pull over. (Though I'm pretty sure that would reform people's driving habits in a hell of a hurry.) But I fail to see how removing the threat--the car--is anything other than a reasonable response.
Perhaps it comes from my having a cop for a father, but I tend to look at police officers as the parents of us all. If your child is playing with matches, no amount of lecturing about the dangers of playing with matches will have any effect if you don't take the matches away. If your child is using any toy in a dangerous manner, it's only natural that you'd remove the toy--even if only for a short time.
To a sizeable segment of the (especially young, and especially male) population, a car is nothing more than a big toy. If you don't believe me, watch a young child with his Hot Wheels some time, and then compare it to the behaviour you see every day behind the wheel. More than half of the cars impounded on Thanksgiving weekend were driven by males 18 to 27 years of age. Little boys with big toys. Speeding and reckless driving are a predominantly male things. Next time you watch a car peeling away from a red light, check the gender of the driver. It's usually a guy. Only a certain kind of male would believe there's something inherently impressive about pressing an accelerator pedal.
I'll tell you how to solve the problem of street racing: remove the ability to race. Give me one good reason why pedestrian cars (by which I mean non-emergency vehicles) should be able to achieve speeds of 160 km/hr or greater. I can't think of one, but I'll consider any passed my way. Until I hear one, I propose all cars manufactured after 2008 be equipped with a device governing speed. I'll leave the exact speed up to a panel composed of police officers and people who've had family members and friends killed in street racing incidents.
And in the meantime, let's see if this law has any effect. If not, the next step is to permanently confiscate vehicles and sell them at book value. Proceeds to the victims of crime.
The hell of it is, even measures this draconian would only be a first step towards changing the driving culture. I've written before about what I consider to be the insanity of piling distraction after distraction on to the laps of drivers, and of drivers actively courting distraction. I'd be no different if I actually drove: show me a screen, for instance, and there's a good chance I'll look at it, even if only fleetingly (and with my luck, it'd be in that fleeting moment some kid runs out in front of me). Hell, I'm famous for being distracted to the point of trance by a simple radio. I may be an extreme case, but sitting in the passenger seat of our little Echo, I see me in microcosm everywhere I look. Cellphones are the paint on the asphalt. People eating, doing their makeup, fiddling with their iPods, who knows what else: driving with half a finger and less than half an eye, trusting other people just as distracted as they are not to hit them. Tell me again how sane this is.
It's bad enough that there are so many people careening around blind, and blind to their own blindness. Add in a few guys in their Civics-cum-Lamborghini Testosteronas and the wonder is there aren't more "accidents"...
Nope, I think it's only fair that people who use their toys to threaten others have those toys taken away.
No comments:
Post a Comment