Today, maybe I don’t have an opinion as much as a viewpoint. I’ve been hearing about a federal text messaging ban while driving. Michigan already has a law that makes it a secondary offense. A secondary offense is something a police officer can cite you for after pulling you over for another offense known as a primary offense (speeding, not wearing a seat belt, shooting a gun out of your moon roof…). Folks seem to disagree about whether to make it a primary or secondary offense.
Some say that a secondary offense would tie the hands of police officers from preventing car crashes. That is assuming that police officers obey the law when pulling people over, which is a pretty big assumption.
Some say that a primary offense won’t matter because texters will just hold their phones below the steering wheel where police officers can’t see them. This will make texting even more dangerous by taking drivers eyes farther from the road.
Some say that no matter what law you pass, people will continue to text anyhow. Instead companies should make technology “safer” for use.
Most people do agree though that texting while driving is unsafe. Cycling advocacy groups have done studies on “distracted driving” to prove that drivers that don’t pay attention are more likely to kill people. Not a hard concept to wrap your head around really. When you think about it, we don’t need most laws if we think it through. We don’t really need a law saying “don’t kill someone” because most people when they are level headed, do not want to kill anyone. Holy books, law books and police officers have no effect on how much I do or do not want to kill people. It is just a really crappy thing to do. Does anyone disagree with that? Oh wait…the state of Georgia does. Well I guess we can’t trust the law to protect us using common sense. There goes that theory. But what makes people want to do unimportant things that put others in danger?
Before I stray too far, let me say I’m into a ban. Despite my anarchist ideals, I know I don’t live within an ideal world. So in that case, I’m all about ticketing people for texting while driving. But what I was getting to a second ago is that drivers do not want to get in crashes. Many feeble minded folks would probably care more about the paint job on their car more than the people they’ve possibly hurt or killed, but no one wants to get in a car crash (besides demolition derby folks, but that is consensual crashing.)
Everyday as I bike around I think about how all the drivers on the road don’t want to kill me (I know that is weird, but it is the truth). Even if it is just because they care more about wanting to avoid a dent on their hood than my life. So what is it that leads drivers to be “distracted” and end up killing other folks? Why engage in behavior that leads to unwanted outcomes?
Simple. It is called car culture. When you are in a 2 ton box of metal and glass you feel invincible because you kind of are. Not that long ago it was a very foreign concept to travel at speeds of 70 miles per hour everyday on your way to work. That simply was not normal. Soon this was something we just accepted. When I was a kid, the idea of using a handheld device to send simple misspelled barely understandable sentences to my friends constantly didn’t make sense. Hell, I didn’t even have a cell phone until I was an adult. Children in elementary school have cell phones now. This still blows my mind. However, for others, this is normal. It is everyday. It is a societal norm. It is our culture.
Many people go along with culture because they live in it. It isn’t easy to deny culture. How many folks in our country call themselves “christian” simply because that is how they were brought up? They go to church on christmas eve and do their time once a year whether they believe in god or not. There is nothing wrong with this if that is what you want to do, but the label of “christian” is much different for those that live that culture daily. People don’t question or explore these parts of themselves. It is a passive belief in fate and destiny.
I’m not trying to get extreme and say that texting or driving should be abolished, but I think we should create a culture where people think critically about their lives. How many times have you heard people say, “I have to speed on the freeway! If I did the speed limit I would be killed!” Most people acknowledge that excessive speeding is dangerous. However, they have to do it because…everyone else does! Full grown adults, are falling back to using middle school arguments to justify their driving behavior. These adults may even be parents who tell their children, “If all your friends jumped off a cliff would you?” Maybe their kid wouldn’t but I bet the parents would!
If logic was used though, we could come to the solution that actually driving the speed limit will be a safer activity than joining the crowd in a ridiculous race. Instead we are stuck with childish broken records of, “I really hate traffic! All these cars are in my way!” Realize that YOU are traffic. YOU are in someones way as well, if that is how you want to look at it. Don’t look in the mirror unless you are willing to realize you are as childish as Sammy Haggar. Don’t deny it, that is your culture and your tradition now.
Despite all our laws and regulations about licensing and age restrictions on driving we treat it like a childish game. Someone cuts you off so you get road rage. Everyone is speeding so you do it too. What happened to being an adult and leading by example? So those of us that are older can blame this “texting problem” on a younger generation, but this is the world we have built for them. We led by example and created these norms. This is the culture we participate in everyday and do not question. Cell phone companies did not make this problem. We did. Laziness and apathy isn’t a new technology.
So going back to what leads drivers to be “distracted” – this culture does. No one wants to get in a car crash, but we live in a culture that tells us that we won’t get in a crash. We are invincible. So even if we are participating in dangerous behavior, we don’t recognize it. We can use a childish viewpoint of the world to prove we aren’t “bad people.” Our society stigmatizes smokers, and drunk drivers. We can easily say, “I text while driving, but I never drink and drive.” In a black and white world, if you aren’t the “evil doer” than you obviously must be completely innocent. But that world is a false one. There are grey areas everywhere. We have to start thinking about how our actions effect others and share blame along with sharing solutions.
I read this article about the texting ban and there was a quote from a young high schooler about how she would be “nervous” about texting and driving. This caught my interest and I began to wonder what makes her nervous? How has this invincible car culture not reached her yet? She most likely has been a passenger in a car before. This selfish disregard for how personal luxury (updating facebook while driving is a luxury) can hurt others hasn’t taken hold in this young woman. How can we keep it that way? How can we convince adults that they aren’t yet done learning?
I remember when I became a “serious” cyclist and began to try riding more days than I drove. Returning back to a car was hard. What was once normal became terrifying. Being a passenger in a car going over the speed limit went from a normal activity to me learning that I can dig my nails pretty far into the arm rests of my parents car. Suddenly this former norm was an exercise in terror. The guise of invincibility was gone. I could no longer pretend that what was happening was “normal” or “right”.
Before I get even more long winded, lets try to wrap this up. I do support a texting ban, but I don’t think it is useful to take a law and create an invisible “bad person.” An argument of, “I speed and cut people off, but at least I’m not texting or drinking!” is a useless one. Our culture’s stigmatization of the week doesn’t absolve us of wrong doing. Just because you don’t smoke doesn’t make your fast food eating, no exercising lifestyle a superior one. At the same time, I can’t get in a rage about drivers that text. I need to remember that they aren’t trying to kill someone or get in a crash. They just have no idea what they are doing.
So how do we solve this problem? I don’t know for sure, but we need to change our viewpoint on some of these problems. Lets be intentional about our bike culture that we are building. Many of us ride because we like being able to be aware of our surroundings. Even if we are riding fast, we are connected to the street much more than when we are in a car. So lets question ourselves and be intentional. Are we building and participating in a bike culture if we have our heads plugged into an mp3 player and blocking out the world? At what point are we being antagonistic and blocking traffic instead of being traffic? At what point are we letting the cool trend of bicycles become an accessory to our persona as a replacement of a car? If we are lazy we can let laws decide this for us. It can paint a picture of the “evil doer” that we can pretend we look nothing like. Or we can be intentional and present in our daily activities. We can care about those around us. We can realize that being part of a culture means sharing with others and give up some of our individuality.