Posted on 05/25/2018 10:15:56 AM PDT by rickmichaels
It is perhaps our most astonishing social contract. Universal, essential and (mostly) binding, it depends of a certain amount of skill, (hopefully) a modicum of training and, most of all, trust.
I am talking, of course, about driving a car. And even though, in the span of just a century and a quarter, it is now just as common an everyday task as taking out the garbage or shopping for groceries, it remains an amazing — possibly the most amazing — social construct we all share.
Think about it for just a minute. Except for the time spent on divided highways, we humans strap ourselves into two-ton projectiles and drive (almost) straight at one another knowing/expecting/please-God-hoping we will pass each other, within a metre or two, going in diametrically opposing directions. We’ll do this millions of times in our lives, at closing speeds of up to 200 kilometres an hour, all the while, again, knowing/expecting/please-God-hoping the person heading directly toward you understands the concept of “you stick to your side of the road, I’ll stick to mine.” We do it without thinking. We assume — how could you drive otherwise? — that every single other participant in these close encounters of the automobile kind has bought into the same social contract. And, we do so from the tender age of 16 when, if my experience with parenting is any indication, we shouldn't even be trusted with a frying pan.
By social contract standards, it is incredibly loosely guarded: Essentially, a painted line in the middle of the road is our one safeguard against trespass. Nonetheless, it is immensely reliable. Imagine the carnage if we all had accidents at the rate we get divorced. It is also almost assuredly the most universal social contract made around the world. Left- or right-hand drive excepted, the art of driving is practiced almost identically everywhere. Compared with, again, marriage — forced nuptials, arranged brides, etc. — or dining customs — forks, chopsticks, fingers etc. — there is a resolute sameness to the basic rules of the road around the world. Drive anywhere — again, left-and right-hand drive orientation excepted — and the skills can be transposed to just about any other jurisdiction.
Oh, there are contraventions of the contract. Besides the narcissistic (texting while driving) and the criminally stupid (driving while intoxicated) there is also the flagrantly selfish — my sister, her husband and their unborn child were all killed because some asshat decided his social contract included a clause that allowed him to try to pass five cars at a stretch when he knew (later revealed in court testimony) that there was room for but four.
Indeed, even those who think nothing of breaking the legal contract of driving — i.e. driving beyond the speed limit, dangerous driving, etc. — depend on said social contract to save their bacon. For instance, the asshats — this time two-wheeled — who video themselves weaving between cars at 300 km/h aboard their Suzuki Hayabusas and Kawasaki Ninjas are relying on absolutely everybody else sticking with the very social contract they themselves are breaking. Otherwise, they’d quickly end up a bright red smear all over the highway.
Oh, adherence to the contract is imperfect; worldwide, 1.25 million humans die every year in automobile collisions. It’s a grotesque number, yes. And yet, that translates into barely one death for every hundred million miles, an incredibly low statistic considering, as I posited at the very beginning of this treatise, we’re basically driving straight at one another.
I state all these seemingly obvious truths because this social contract is coming under scrutiny as of late. At some time in the future — as soon as 15 years from now if you believe former General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz — we may all be told we’ll no longer be allowed to drive, the social contract that has governed driving for 125 years simply to dangerous to continue. Indeed, I suspect the right to drive versus our desire for safety will almost certainly become the individual-rights/public-good question of our generation.
We are already in the midst of the transition. When a company such as Volvo — it that virtually invented safety as a marketing tool — says no one will perish in one of its cars after 2020, what it is really saying is it is seeking to eliminate all risk in the task of driving. No matter how big the airbag or absorbent the crumple zone, the only way to completely eliminate deaths due to automobile collisions is to completely eliminate said collisions. And since you and I are the main reason for these accidents, well, you don’t need a road map to see where this is going.
The bigger question in all of this is whether safety has become our society’s paramount concern. Certainly for all those university students who need a “safety room” every time they are “triggered” by freedom of speech, it has. If that’s the case, then the future of personal driving has already been sealed.
If not, then the question becomes what level of risk are we willing to accept to be allowed to continue to enjoy the privilege of driving. For instance, will Toyota’s philosophy of providing universal driving “aids” on all its cars, but leaving the ultimate care and control of the automobile in the driver’s hands, be acceptable? Are the 30 to 50 per cent of lives these technologies might save — my numbers, not Toyota’s — sufficient to permit us to keep driving?
These are all questions, no matter how uncomfortable, that need to be discussed in a forthright manner in a public forum. The choice, otherwise, is to let our politicians and their safety organization mandarins dictate the decision. That’s almost never a wise choice.
Canadians still buy cars whose curb weight is in the two-ton range? (That’d be 4,480 lbs for up there.)
Today, one in 8 in the US are illegal. Add in alcohol, armed gangs, high powered drugs, cell phones and a significant increase in mental cases, driving isn’t the peaceful pastime it once was.
Sorry to say but that sounds I don’t know what kind of wussy. And I drive a lot in my Dodge Challenger and I drive fast and I love it and the government can go f*** themselves and pull my cold dead hands off my steering wheel after they track me down and shoot me
+1
‘Social contract’?? When did the Right of travel cease?
Walk > animal riding > carriage > (motor)bike > car+
Only w/ the that last one was ‘license’ even considered. Course, what should I expect, the ideal of Federalism has been turned 180 degrees; EVERYTHING requires govt ‘permission’ in the (once) Land of the Free
We have had a HUGE increase in serious accidents caused by “impaired” driving since marijuana was legalized. There seem to be a large number of people who consume most of their marijuana in their cars. You can’t go for a drive to the grocery store without the skunk like odor of marijuana wafting into your car from other cars near you. The police seem to do almost nothing about it.
A car is a dangerous,aggravating,expensive, but necessary tool. I’m thankful to have one,but love it? Nope. I just need it. And roads and highways are battlefields.
Last Dodge I drove, one day started shedding parts in the road -- thought a rake had bumped and was dragging but nope, just the heat shield dragging.
If the contract is not enforced, hordes of bastards will not respect the terms of the contract.
Enforce it severely.
I see similarities to the issue of guns in this too.
That's the underlying flaw in the whole concept of self-driving cars. The auto manufacturers are chasing a market that is slowly disappearing.
I refuse to own or rent 4 cylinder cars for a similar reason. Save the lawnmower sound for at home.
Even the new Mustang II.
“1.25 million humans die every year in automobile collisions”
Obviously we need common sense vehicle control and car bans.
For the children.
Imagine the outrage if this so called right of the automobile was attacked as much as the Second Amendment? One is by far the leading cause of death and injury everywhere on the planet.
utter nonsense...
if society cared about safety, they would prohibit the homosexual lifestyle...they would prohibit drug use...
I call BS. Have any evidence?
Cars are a small enclosed environment. Not personally having any experience with the stuff, I’m guessing they can extend their high longer since the smoke isn’t being dissipated in the air.
“Three years after recreational marijuana legalization, changes in motor vehicle crash fatality rates for Washington and Colorado were not statistically different from those in similar states without recreational marijuana legalization.” - https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2017.303848
This article bewails the loss of driving independence while providing a laundry list of reasons to justify ending such independence.
I’m sure self-driving vehicles being on the road will still afford some car ownership and control. Teslas are essentially self-driving already but still require a human to operate.
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