theblackdostoyevsky

What’s one thing that would instantly improve your city?

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My suggestion to improve my city isn’t able to be mandated. At least, I wouldn’t want it to be because it would defeat the purpose. But I do trust that if enough people supported and practiced the concept that their collective example would make the worst perpetrators ashamed enough of themselves to adjust their behavior. My suggestion is, when driving in traffic, to remember the cars’ length following distance. 

Good citizenship reflects consideration for others. Vehicles, in general, are remarkably inconsiderate in that they don’t allow for interpersonal confrontation. Whatever is done in the car is between the cars, not the people driving them. Sure, you can flip a bird or speed around a car who’s not in as much a rush as you, but neither of you has an opportunity, nor will you ever, to either justify or apologize for your offense. So, all day long, we are offending and being offended by the brooding headlights of those around us without the opportunity to look someone square in the face and say, “I’m sorry, but I woke up twenty minutes late and I’m on the verge of being fired if I don’t get to the office on time,” or “Hey, I’m just joyriding today, enjoying the splendid weather, go on around me.” 

Instead, we make assumptions about others by their impersonal driving behavior and judge their maneuvers personally. We imagine that, somehow, this car has it out for me and the person driving it knows me and my dilemma and is purposely trying to thwart my purposes. We imagine offenses and whip them up into actual wrath, and we express that wrath with two-ton aluminum caskets of flammable gasoline. We transport our most precious assets in these things, our families, and behave like drunken rivals sitting home side at a sporting event. We’d never behave the way we do in vehicles while in line at the grocery store. We don’t ride up people’s backs because they are ahead of us in line. We don’t sneer and curse them because they’re browsing the impulse buys as they wait. We don’t curl around them and their children because they slowed their gait a mite. We wait, as patiently as we are able, because we don’t want to unmask our inner assholes before the eyes of other people. In the car, we aren’t so ashamed of ourselves, because we imagine ourselves unseen. We are accountable to no one, when in the car. 

Now, I can appreciate that there are different styles of drivers. I can also appreciate that we’re not all in line at the grocery store, headed towards an identical destination, the next register. I can also appreciate that there will always be those folks who genuinely believe themselves better than everyone else and, thus more worthy to strive to be the first car on an unending road. And yet, to employ a simple following distance would compel a number of different thought processes and behaviors that would decrease the stress that comes with commuting, would decrease the anxiety before getting into the car, and would decrease the irritability after getting to where we’re going. Driving is ubiquitous. Nearly everyone is beholden, at some point in the day, to sit behind the wheel, and nearly everyone’s experience of people while in the car is worse than when outside of it. Nearly. 

Practicing a cars’ length following distance causes drivers to lay off of the gas and spend more time coasting, or else tapping and releasing the accelerator, rather than accelerating and braking in rapid succession which unsettles and aggravates the drivers behind them. It creates more and greater spaces on the road for safe lane changes. It decreases accidents by limiting the amount of time drivers are feverishly glancing into their rear mirrors to watch how closely the car behind them is riding. By decreasing the amount of time glancing in rear mirrors, more attention is given to safe braking distances, thus decreasing congestion at traffic lights and minimizing the chances of fender benders and braking collisions. It increases the flow of traffic, when drivers are not constantly braking and accelerating because they’ve limited their distance vision by riding too closely to the car in front of them, or else changing lanes back and forth which, contrary to popular behavior, slows the flow of traffic. 

Most importantly, and you might find this corny and cliche, but it’s true: Life is about the journey, not the destination. And yet our traffic behavior exposes our character in reaching that destination. The purpose of the journey, or the drive, is to cultivate the character necessary to thrive once we’ve reached the destination. The destination is never an ending; it’s a new beginning. But daily we spend our time in traffic cultivating worse character during the journey so that we our effectiveness is torpedoed once we’ve reached the destination. We lost the client before we ever clocked in. So, on our return trips our driving behavior is worse than upon arrival. The next morning, hungover from the previous day’s disappointment, likely having overslept the alarm, we run back the same road rage as the day before, forsaking the journey again, sinking another targeted missile into our ambitions. Folks, it ain’t just showing up. It’s how we show up that makes the difference. And how we show up depends upon how we rode the hills and valleys we came through to get there. So, if we’re a dick in the car, trust me, everyone knows we’re a dick everywhere else in, too. Nothing tells us more about a person than their driving behavior, I don’t care what mask they wear after they’re out of the car. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been sped past and cut off by a car that then braked abruptly, causing me to slam my own, and then turned into a church. And yet, here’s the kicker: had I been more gracious and let them go on, minding my following distance instead of accelerating up behind them in my anger, wanting retribution that I know I’d never receive, they’d have had space to safely turn into their church without me having to slam my brakes. 

You see, it’s never the other person who’s the problem; it’s me. It’s never the other person who’s the problem; it’s me. If I want others to change their behavior, I’ve got to change mine first. Problem is, we live in Looney Tune land where, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” is the motto. Well, who ever said I had to beat anybody anywhere? We turned commuting into competition and that toxicity has bled into every institution in our society because it’s the only institution we all have in common. So I’ve gotta change, because me flipping birds at you and mouthing curses through two panes of glass fifteen feet apart isn’t going to change your behavior. Maybe, I just need to slow down.