car culture
Lately, for exercise, I've been walking to work once or twice a week. This walk is about three miles long and takes about an hour. Two-thirds of the walk is through sweet little neighborhoods on back streets until I can't avoid the big streets anymore and I wind up on Broadway, ready to cross the big, red bridge over the Willamette and into downtown.
Every time I walk, I cross this particularly complicated intersection on Broadway. It's tricky because two sets of traffic, moving in the same direction, but merging from different roads, get two different lights which are pretty short. The people waiting at those spots, sensing they're being shafted by the super-short lights, always run the reds. I can guarantee that at least three cars will keep barrelling through the intersection after my pedestrian "walk" sign has lit up and the light in my direction has turned green.
Today as I stood on the edge of the curb waiting for these last stragglers to go so I could cross, I found myself really watching the last guy to go through. He was well behind the others, which meant the light had been fully and completely red before he'd even gotten near it, yet he'd decided to sail on through anyway. I watched and wondered who this guy thought he was that he could just slide through a red like it didn't apply to him. I wasn't so much annoyed or irritated as curious. What was he doing that was so important? What was he late for? What did he tell himself about his own importance that made it ok for him to run the light and hold up four lanes of traffic and at least one pedestrian who had waited their turn and now had to wait longer for him?
In other words, why doesn't this guy care about the other people in the world who aren't him? And it's not just "this" guy -- "this" guy could be any of us in any moment, sailing along like we own the place. My first thought was "car culture." We wear our cars like armor -- they protect and shield us from interacting with others. We can ride around in our little pods and lose our humanity. That guy probably wouldn't have even considered busting in front of me in line at the grocery store, because we would've been eye to eye -- human to human -- and he would have had to face me as a person when he cut me off. As it was, he could glide through that red light, barely discernable behind his windows, without even glancing at the four lanes of traffic and pedestrian he was cutting off. He could tune us all out.
Of course, car culture is just one aspect of a much larger problem that starts somewhere in that nebulous notion of rugged, American individualism. There's certainly something in our larger culture that rewards the bully and emasculates everyone else. Just look at our president and the global disaster we're perpetuating on every level. America, as a nation, lives the global version of that guy in the SUV every day. Is it any wonder people run red-lights? We see our leaders run them on the grandest scale. I guess I should be lucky there are any cars left who stop at all.
Every time I walk, I cross this particularly complicated intersection on Broadway. It's tricky because two sets of traffic, moving in the same direction, but merging from different roads, get two different lights which are pretty short. The people waiting at those spots, sensing they're being shafted by the super-short lights, always run the reds. I can guarantee that at least three cars will keep barrelling through the intersection after my pedestrian "walk" sign has lit up and the light in my direction has turned green.
Today as I stood on the edge of the curb waiting for these last stragglers to go so I could cross, I found myself really watching the last guy to go through. He was well behind the others, which meant the light had been fully and completely red before he'd even gotten near it, yet he'd decided to sail on through anyway. I watched and wondered who this guy thought he was that he could just slide through a red like it didn't apply to him. I wasn't so much annoyed or irritated as curious. What was he doing that was so important? What was he late for? What did he tell himself about his own importance that made it ok for him to run the light and hold up four lanes of traffic and at least one pedestrian who had waited their turn and now had to wait longer for him?
In other words, why doesn't this guy care about the other people in the world who aren't him? And it's not just "this" guy -- "this" guy could be any of us in any moment, sailing along like we own the place. My first thought was "car culture." We wear our cars like armor -- they protect and shield us from interacting with others. We can ride around in our little pods and lose our humanity. That guy probably wouldn't have even considered busting in front of me in line at the grocery store, because we would've been eye to eye -- human to human -- and he would have had to face me as a person when he cut me off. As it was, he could glide through that red light, barely discernable behind his windows, without even glancing at the four lanes of traffic and pedestrian he was cutting off. He could tune us all out.
Of course, car culture is just one aspect of a much larger problem that starts somewhere in that nebulous notion of rugged, American individualism. There's certainly something in our larger culture that rewards the bully and emasculates everyone else. Just look at our president and the global disaster we're perpetuating on every level. America, as a nation, lives the global version of that guy in the SUV every day. Is it any wonder people run red-lights? We see our leaders run them on the grandest scale. I guess I should be lucky there are any cars left who stop at all.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 12:33 AM
1 Comments:
Living carless in Europe was an experience that I'm still processing. At first I really missed the mobility and independance (there's that word again!) of having a car; it was an adjustment, being dependant on public transportation to travel. If I didn't take a bus or train, I walked. And I really learned to love walking around my little town. There are neighborhoods of Paris that I know like the back of my hand, because I walked every inch of them several times. You notice so many things: graffitti on the sidewalk, flowers in window boxes, the way the light hits the buildings in the evening. You get to know a town in a way that driving through it can never give you.
It's been wierd, back home in American car culture. Everywhere looks the same: traffic lights and turn lanes and parking lots. There's no personality or spirit to the place I live in; it's kind of isolating and dead. Driving is stressful. I used to be a speed demon before I left; I'm not in a hurry any more. Running errands is a hassle because you gotta drive everywhere. I could walk to some places (in this heat), but I got to cross four lanes of traffic and a huge intersection first. Frankly, I hope I never readjust to car culture.
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