Howdy commuters! Hmm, or should I say “Howdy Fellow Exxon, BP, Chevron Supporters!”
Long time, no vent.
No, we haven’t moved Seatac or Redmond. We didn’t suddenly take up bicycling or start a local chotchke store. We are still making the escape-from-egypt-south-for-the-winter trek from nowhere to somewhere to keep the IRS and Olympia happy.
When do we get the thank you letters from the children of the oil company executives and speculators? Summer is coming and they must be planning the mother of all vacations! They must be renting Liechtenstein for a few months. Now it all makes sense. Good times, good times.
So let’s go over some of the explanations for why we have been led to the barn and hooked to the milking machine.
Unrest in the middle east. Hmm, is this new? Isn’t there always unrest in the middle east?
Oil speculators. Fascinating. I’m not a fan of government getting involved in any business transaction, but this is sounding like a lightly veiled licence to steal to me.
Lack of refineries. Ok, I understand this one a little I guess. I get just as nausiated as the next guy when I see wildlife floundering in spilled oil. I agree we need to break our dependence on oil. That being said, until we can all drive cars powered by warm thoughts, we have to find a way to make sure we don’t break our banks in the mean time. If only we could fuel a car with foul language!
Increased world demand. China, blast you for making all that progress! How inconsiderate! I get why this makes the price rise, but I don’t understand how this translates into bull dog collar like spikes.
I don’t know about you, but my teets hurt. Here’s what I think is actually happening. There is a group of people in and around the oil/gas industry who watch Google news. When they see an article like “Civil War eminent in Libya” they take 40 seconds to do the happy dance then make a few phone calls to cash in on the fear.
Do I think $1 per gallon is still feasible in 2011, no. Giving a few cackling profit junkies the ability to squeeze the world every time they need a fix has got to stop!
This morning we were merging onto Northbound I-5 from Eastbound SR-16 and got hit from behind. That location is another fine example of bad freeway design mixed with drivers who can’t merge.
Two lanes end as traffic merges onto I-5. The engineers gave traffic plenty of time to perform this merge by extended the length of the ending lanes for half a mile or so. Unfortunately they didn’t seem to consider the mentality of the standard Washington State motorist. Instead of attempting to perform the merge … oh wait, let me define merge again.
(Wes put’s on his comically exaggerated hat and smile reminiscent of those employed by kiddie show hosts since the 1950’s)
Hiya Kids! Say Hiya Mr. Merger! (Wes waits, plastic smile still gleaming). Ok, can you count to 2?!? Sure you can! Say it with me, 1 and 2 and 1 and 2 and 1 and 2! Yay!. Now we’re merging. Today, were going to learn a new word that helps us merge on the freeway, ok!?! Yay! Here it is, Ayegoyougo. It’s pronounced like this ‘I-go-you-go’. Say it with me ….
/sarcasm_off
Where was I? Oh yah, so, the folks who designed this traffic blending forgot that drivers here don’t know hot to merge. When seeing that they lane they are in is about to end, the intended behavior is that driver’s should look for the earliest safe place to insert themselves into a lane that won’t be ending, or simply put, safely merge to the left. To be honest, about half the drivers actually do this. The problem is the remainder see their lane ending, see the slowing (stopped really) traffic in the lane to the left, look ahead at half a wide open mile in front of them and gun it.
The net effect of the behavior is that they and up causing a hideous backup right where the lane ends as they jam their car to the left (or worse drive on the shoulder a bit farther to get an extra couple car lengths ahead). This backup blocks traffic all the way to (sometimes before the beginning of the merge) and builds into the traffic equivalent of something you’d call the plumber for.
That’s where we found ourselves this morning. I merged into the left lane at a safe location and sat in the gagged up mess that is there almost every day. Unfortunately behind us was a driver that wasn’t paying attention to the traffic ahead, braked too late and slid into our rear bumper.
Here’s the good news, so far it doesn’t look like there was any damage to either car. Josh, the driver of the other car, was apologetic and relieved as we examined our bumpers. It was an accident, and those things happen. We exchanged information just in case we missed some damage. We thanked God for well designed cars, shook hands and went on our way.
Here’s the long and short of it, my wife is 6 months pregnant. Every day we fight this merge and several others just like it. Every day these same people put our health and property at risk so they can get another half a mile ahead. Fine, they don’t respect us. They don’t care about our property or safety. I get that. We live in a society where we are taught to place personal desire above all of our competitors. I get that too, I don’t buy it, but I understand it. It’s not just presented as acceptable behavior but engrained as a right that each individual is entitled to.
I just wish there was a way to make my unborn son exempt from it for a while. Just some time to get him going before this avalanche of selfishness tries to plow him under. It makes me almost want to put that “baby on board” sign up in the car. Of course that just makes me think of the number of times I’ve seen them in the back window of the car that just cut me off.
Oh, and the icing on the cake. As we tried to work our way to the shoulder after the accident, we got a series of annoyed angry honks from the same drivers that cause the mess as they rocketed up the closing lane. Lovely.
Hey, can we call this Indian Summer still? I’m not sure of the origins of the term, but we are having a string of truly wonderful days to enjoy. I look fondly on the term and I hope it isn’t in the “offensive” bucket these days.
Do you remember those toothpaste advertisements where the company backups the quality of the product by stating “4 out of 5 dentists surveyed”? They never say where they got their pool of dentists did they? Statistics are a funny thing, you can make them say just about anything you want really.
Well now, there you go. Enough said, lets text our heads off, that was just a silly law to pass. Hey, lets fire up them cell phones again and get back to yakking behind the wheel too.
That’s pretty much how people (especially those who are dying to keep their conversation going in the fast lane) are seeing it. They watch that news article and that’s enough. Now most of the “journalists” mention something vague like “The Government objects to the findings in the report”.
Heh, well, “The Governments” response comes in the form of Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood who blows the report out of the water. The article at that link is worth reading, but at the risk of being yet another person who boils down someone elses information I’ll give you my favorite highlights.
“Distracted driving-related crashes killed nearly 5,500 people in 2009 and injured almost half a million more.” The source of those numbers aren’t ambiguous or derived as statistics. In fact, those numbers are a different type of figure called metrics.
Now, as a person who deals daily with the gathering and presenting of metrics I think I can say that the difference between metrics and statistics is night and day. Metrics is a total count of things or if you prefer, a sum of events. Statistics is deriving a conclusion based on a sampling.
Before I anger all my statistic savvy friends out there, I’m not dismissing statistics. In fact statistics is a fascinating science that we use on a daily basis to make huge decisions that do lots of good stuff. The problem is that by their nature they lend themselves to misuse by those who can take the results produced and word smith the interpretation. Metrics are less subject to interpretation.
Ok, /nerd_off.
So, back to our friend Ray Lahood. Ray makes another great point in his report. A point that made me stand up and cheer. He discusses a study by the DOT of pilot enforcement campaigns in Harford, Connecticut and Syracuse. New York from April 2010. They tested to see if increased enforcement and public service announcements could reduce the number of folks using their phone while driving.
Wow, who-da-thunk-it. It works! Gee, so what were saying here is that passing laws isn’t enough to stop people from talking/texting while driving? Oh, you have to write them tickets and make it painful to get them to stop? What a revelation.
Anyone who spends any time on the road and has a small measure of common sense could have answered all these questions. People who talk on their cell phones (text, read a map, do their makeup etc) do dangerous stuff while driving and cause accidents. After the recent hands free law went into effect, people put their phones down for a week (hmm, about the same length of time that police focused on enforcing the law) and then picked them right back up again.
I’m glad Ray is willing to go on the record with it, really I am. I’m glad he called out that it isn’t enough to pass laws but that we need to enforce them.
To me though this whole thing is another clear sign post on the highway of modern life. We have a mess of people running around doing things that make their life easier regardless of the cost to those around them. That cost starts with annoyance, moves to property damage, then injury and finally loss of life. We get a burst of public outrage and pass some laws thinking that will solve the problem. Everyone pats each other on the back on a job well done and the truth gets swallowed up in spin while the media machine generates lots of advertising revenue.
In the end, I’m still getting cut off by the Soccer Mom on the phone with Janet sharing her tofu smoothy recipe. The pattern repeats itself in so many places. Look at how many issues go round and round and the only result is the media outlets get more time to tell us that “Bob is Living Large”. When will we have had our fill?
The most powerful tools we have today are our wallets and our remote controls. I still mark my ballot when it comes out but I’m backing it up with Fast Forward, Channel Up, Power Off and wallet closed.
I spent a bunch of time in my 20’s free wheeling. Hmm, that’s not a strong enough description. It was more like a human tornado that passed over a pile of railroad spikes, broken glass and a bucket of liquid arrogance.
In my 30’s I found a moral center and since I’ve spent my time trying to keep from starting any cyclonic motion and clean up the mess I’d left. Part of that for me has been about trying to set goals and pick direction. I’m not very good at it, but it helps me to keep things from spinning and repeating bad behavior.
Out of that comes a heinous side effect. Once I establish a plan or pick a direction I become rather insistent about reaching the destination. When I get derailed I see another side of me that I don’t like very much. I guess my 40’s is going to be about learning to be able to change plans with out stressing so hard my toes throb.
Here’s where we are, well ok, were at. I’m 44, Tammy is 29 (just go with it, I’m scoring points here and besides, that’s how I see her). Our short-range plan was all about becoming debt free and our long-range plans revolved around retirement. We live out in the sticks where it’s quiet and comfortable. We have a house that’s just about right. The only down side is our commute but you know that story. So, it’s a plan, not overly detailed, but it gave a place in the distance that we could check point against.
A couple of months ago Tammy was having some symptoms. She was experiencing hot flashes, and had lost her appetite for certain foods. Shrimp and the homemade breakfast sausage she had perfected suddenly made her turn green. Particularly in the morning. If I hadn’t had a vasectomy I would have suggested she take a pregnancy test, LOL. So, we figured early menopause and she scheduled a doctor’s appointment.
Her doctor agreed. The symptoms definitely sounded hormonal in some way, so he drew blood and took some notes. Just to cover all the bases he ordered a pregnancy test. That night about 7:00 her doctor called. Now, when your doctor calls you in the evening, panic is the overriding emotion. I watched Tammy as every emotion from surprise, through terror, and joy passed over her face. “You might want to have your husband talk to his doctor because you’re pregnant.”
For the first 24 hours I tried to convince myself that it was a false positive. It was either delusion or defibrillator and since I would have had to rig something up involving a car battery, delusion seemed like the appropriate choice.
It didn’t take long though and reality set in. We had just started to adjust to the idea as we staggered to the first Dr. appointment. As is often the case reality brought its good friends fear and doubt. The baby’s heart beat was high and space was cramped. The next two weeks were horrid and it seemed like that next appointment would never get here. God is good and the story doesn’t end there.
The kid has elbowed itself some more room. All the beats, counts, and blips fell into the normal range. Next Friday we should find out the gender and then we can start watching money fly out of the bank account like it had rockets attached.
What was retirement plans now becomes thoughts of private school and college funds. I’m starting to get visions of our progeny’s graduation day. With a big smile on my face I’ll steady myself with my walker and wave as our offspring shakes hands with the principal. I have no idea how we get from here to there, but we’ll manage. There are some terrific moments raising a child and I’m clinging to those thoughts like a used dryer sheet to the inside of a sweatshirt.
What does this have to do with commuting? Not much really other than to say I look at the money we spend on our roads and the way people treat each other in that setting and pray for my child’s future. I pray that he or she will live in an America where we’ve learned better fiscal responsibility than we have now. I pray for that kindness and consideration prevails over selfishness and pride.
Most of all I pray that our child has the good sense to live closer to work.
With being laid up for a couple of weeks I feel like I completely missed summer. I got drenched walking to the cafeteria yesterday! I know the rain is what makes everything here green but can’t we arrange to have the watering done at night or something?
In my last post I mentioned the work at the Nalley Valley Viaduct and commented that it seemed to be going well. Have a look at the project site, it’s pretty impressive. There is one side effect of the work that we see every day though that gets my ire going enough to make my right eye bulge so hard that I hold my hand below my face just in case I need to catch it.
Going southbound on I-5 onto the exit to SR-16 has become a stewing mess that exposes every selfish (and dangerous) behavior we see during our commute. Currently cars entering from I-705 and exiting to SR-16 are forced to compete for the same lane which in and of itself is dangerous. When you add to that inattentive self-important road ragers, you are in for a brawl. There are all kinds of little behaviors that make me shake my head here, but the worst pain is caused by our friend Zoomer.
As you approach this area it’s pretty clear what’s going on. There’s a big line of cars waiting to exit. 95% of us know what that means. If we wish to exit, we need to get in the back of that line. On most days there is plenty of room and warning for everyone to easily take there place. Of course there are some folks that are new to the situation who don’t realize that they were suppose to get in that line. Let me start by saying “Hello, we sure feel bad for the confusion this situation has caused. However, what this means is that you have missed your exit. Please continue on to the next exit and turn around safely. You can still get where you are going you’ll simply be a few minutes late. This is the cost of driving in an area you are unfamiliar with and we appreciate you planning ahead for that eventuality. In any case, please don’t panic and cause an accident. Thank You — Your fellow motorist”.
Then there’s Zoomer. Zoomer is hip and happening. To Zoomer, folks who wait in line are “simps” and “rubes”. Zoomer would say “opportunity doesn’t just happen, it’s taken!”. Unfortunately he/she is always taking that opportunity at someone elses expense. So every day we watch Zoomer and his friends fly up along the line of cars and jam in at the very last second. This causes two very dangerous conditions.
First in the lane left of the exit lane (the lane Tammy and I are in because we avoid the mess and go to the next exit and turn around) Zoomer goes from 65 to 5 MPH as he slams his (SUV, Acura, BMW, Audi, etc) into the exit lane. This causes a chain reaction of folks to come to a sudden stop in that lane and all the rippling side effects that contribute to an already congested traffic area.
Second, Zoomer has now consumed space that was previously left as safe following distance for some other motorist who has waited there turn in line. He or she is then forced to slow down which at the very least causes the whole exit lane to reduce pace and at the most causes a rear end collision.
Here’s a little video to illustrate the behavior.
The wrecked cones at the end show just how many folks have pulled this and how persistent they can be. They’ve repaired the cones a couple of times but I think they have finally given up.
The sad part is that if everyone would simply wait there turn the delay would be tolerable. It becomes the mess that it is every day purely because Zoomer feels his itinerary is more important than the rest of our property, sanity, and safety. I guess the crux is this, the police have said it isn’t illegal. Well, the folks who wreck the cones of course are different, but the Zoomers in my video aren’t technically violating a law.
The whole thing makes my mourn for our society. Without the threat of punishment there is no motivation for us to care for one another? If the individual is the highest moral authority the rally cry is “Get all you can and take it from your neighbor if you won’t get caught!”. How sad.
During my blogging hiatus there has been a bunch of progress on our commute route. Some of it very positive. The HOV lane expansion through Fife is promising and the reworking of the Nalley Valley Viaduct is sorely needed.
Then of course there’s the Smarter Highway System. We’ve watched this come to life over the last year or so. The system is made up of multiple sets of LED signs positioned above each lane. The intention (hmm, good intentions, there’s a phrase) is to be able to dynamically change the speed of individual lanes as well as close them to route traffic around accidents etc. In theory that sounds terrific, however, in practice it makes no sense at all.
First of all, no one in the commuting frenzy gives a feather weight about the speed limit. You have two categories in play. The first are people who drive Warp 9 fully expecting that with the combination of their superior driving skills and high velocity the molecules of their car will some how move out of phase long enough to pass through solid objects should a collision become imminent. The second are folks who have somehow decided that 52 is the magic number and attempt to drive exactly 52 MPH regardless of the lane they are in or the current traffic volume.
The next behavior that knocks the Smart Highway idea off the common sense list is the utter lack of enforcement. The State can’t afford to hire enough Troopers (much less properly compensate the one’s we have) to handle the existing volume of traffic related problems. How about the number of drunk and reckless drivers we all see and say “where’s a policeman when you need them”. Remember the Hands Free cell phone use law that just went into effect? Not much press about those tickets getting written is there? Guess what, not enough police to enforce the law. Seems like we could have spent that $23 million dollars, yes $23 million dollars, on hiring more Troopers to enforce the laws we already have.
Last but not least on my list of why this system is pure silliness, the posted limits change like a Vegas slot machine. Washington drivers can’t pay attention to the other cars on the road, how do we expect them to adjust to dynamic speed limit changes?
It would be fun if I could tell you that I’ve been on tour dispensing commuting wisdom to the masses but alas no, work just got in the way.
Working in the technology field (aka professional nerding) one can imagine what the most valuable competencies might be in an employee. Raw intelligence? Maybe good problem solving skills? How about the ability to take a stand when you know it’s the right thing to do? These all seem reasonable to me. Unfortunately over the last several months I found myself working on a team whose key desired employee attribute was the ability to stay attached to the keyboard for 12 hours a day 7 days a week.
I’ve worked long enough in this industry to know that occasionally things come up that necessitate putting in some extra hours. It’s unavoidable. The hope is that this only occurs during extreme emergency and that those emergencies are only rarely tolerated. Recently for me that wasn’t the case as the team had adopted a “Red Alert!” style environment trading butts in seats for the pain of having to assemble a strategy that might require some thought or dare I say investment (time or money). It’s much easier to say “we need you to really take ‘ownership’ of the product” to your employee than it is to say “no” to senior management.
I plowed on until 2 things happened.
I developed a large blood clot in my left leg. The doctors call this a Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT).
I found a new position in the company working for a manager that has a different set of expectations.
The pain in my leg is nearly gone and with six months of blood thinners I should recover completely. Today is my first day sitting in my new office and my brain is already starting to recover from the experience. Not that my new team is a field of green grass but it’s a new set of problems and my role in them is significantly different.
So, Plague of Buses lives! In the next few days I will continue to broadcast my running comment on commuting madness.
Wow, busy busy busy. I’ve been on the road every day for a couple of weeks trying to get my brain around a new product. I’m still having fun learning. A side benefit from working with new people is you get to watch a new set of working styles and I always pick up new tips and tricks.
I don’t know about your car, but mine has this little stick on one side of the steering column. It’s really cool and makes this whole driving thing go so much smoother. You see, when I want to move my car from one lane to another or say do something radical like make a turn from one street to another, I can move the position of that stick. From there some really cool electrical things happen and a light on the outside of my car (on the side that matches the direction I am moving) begins to flash. Apparently all the other drivers have been told what this means and it makes them aware that I’m about to do something that will change the configuration of the environment around them.
Wow, that’s something huh. What they can do with this newfangled technology!
All kidding aside, from my observation the turn signal must be broken in 30% of all vehicles. For the 70% remaining, half of them treat the device as an afterthought. I’ve tried to imagine what process these drivers must be following and I’ve broken it down into a couple groups.
Some operate the signal by dangling a spare finger off the wheel as they turn, thereby tripping the turn signal as the wheel goes round. The net result is that their tires hit the lane stripes about the same time the signal lights up. I think of these folks as either people obsessed with drinking tea in the proper English fashion or who when driving silently recite the mantra “10 and 2, 10 and 2“. Either way, I notice that their wheels are in the new location long before I notice that they bothered to signal.
Our next group of folks manages to get the turn signal engaged but then forget to disengage it after they have completed their turn. I have two worries when maneuvering my car past someone in this state (and yes I have done this from time to time myself, and yes the comments I’m about to make applies to me during these times as well). The first is of course, are they simply being ultra-prepared and “vehiclularly verbose” by turning their signal on 11 miles before their turn? If that’s the case then I should hang back and let them do what they need. My second concern is, are they actually asleep at the wheel and I just happened to catch them at the moment before they go careening across all lanes of travel and testing airbag deployments for multiple makes and models?
Lastly, and frankly the one that freaks me out the most is the driver that signals in one direction and then turns the other. What do I say here? I imagine that the potential for this to occur to any random sample driver is greater than zero but I’ve watched drivers do it repeatedly over the course of a 10 mile stretch of road! I know there are many reasons that this might occur and a few of them, dyslexia included, are out of the driver’s control. All that aside, if you have trouble telling right from left you shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car.
Now of course I haven’t mentioned the raging ass-hat who flies through traffic as if the rest of us were simply placed there as convenient obstacles to make his drive more entertaining. You know, like the gates a skier avoids during a race. Hey, if you hit one or two, it just slows you down and deducts a few points from your final score right?
This is another place where our thought process and value system interacts with the world in evident ways. It’s a big part of what makes commuting so stressful. We have the ability to impact on another’s life severely when driving a car. I would venture to say it’s like nothing else that we do. You are in control of a couple thousand pounds of metal, traveling at speeds fast enough that (particularly when combined) create enough force to rip the human body to pieces. It’s dangerous enough when you factor in the occasional inattention or delayed reflexes that occur to all of us. When you layer selfishness and stupidity on top it becomes tragic.
People living in proximity of one another are going to rough each other up now and then. It’s the nature of the place we live in. We all have different clarifying moments that teach us to see the impression we leave on one another, but I think most of us get there. Some seem to never find the top of the arc when they swing wildly. Even harder to understand are those that seem to enjoy flailing about. You learn to spot those folks and hopefully steer clear of them but it’s harder to do as the speed increases.
Don’t drive angry, drive weird!
PS: Saw a bumper sticker and had to share – “Stupid Kills, but not enough to really help”. It made me giggle, I couldn’t help it.
There hasn’t been much time for blogging last week. I’m learning a new job responsibility and that’s kept me pretty busy.
I don’t know what it is about waking up on Monday mornings. Even with all the effort I put into getting my brain to shut off at night, I still get the occasional day (like today) where I’m running around on 5 hours sleep.
Shedding Light on the Subject
It was a torrential downpour most of the night out in the hinder land. I was surprised to wake up and still have power. Thanks to my Father in-law Bob and my good friend Doug we have a generator that I can plug into the house and keep going if I need to, but it’s always a mess.
But at o’dark-30 the rain had stopped and the wind was blowing a few sun breaks our way. Cloud formations fascinated me. We have some truly wild weather here in the Pacific Northwest and with all the moisture the sky can start to look choreographed.
I know each area of the country has its quirky weather. In the plains states you can look out and see a storm from one side to the other and I won’t try to talk about things like hurricanes and tornados. I’ve always been struck however by the way the light and clouds interact here. The shot to the left was taken from I-5 this morning in Fife.
At 6:00 am there isn’t much talking going on in the car and when I’m running on limited sleep my mind tends to spin on scenes like this. The clouds with their dingy underbelly, giving hints of hope of blue sky above. The sun assaulting the scene, trying to fight its way into the day and drive back the darkness. That’s what rattles around in my head when I’m sleepy.
I get sort of down on dreary days. The older I get the more the cold seems to bother me. I’ve begun to see true wisdom in things like a pair of fuzzy slippers or a cardigan sweater. Having a wife with warm hands is a nice bonus. I think over time you can’t help but get effected by the long stretches of grey, wet days.
It’s that time of year though. April and May starting giving hints of warmer weather. I love that first day you can walk out and the sun is strong enough to penetrate through that layer chill. We haven’t quite gotten there yet but that picture is a sign. In the next week or two I’ll walk outside, stretch my arms and get some lasting relief from the cold.
It’s nice to see days like today and know that light is out there fighting its way in. It will take that grey stain off those clouds and the world will seem cleaner.
Ugh, last day of vacation. When I was young and my commuting method was a seat-less bicycle, I can remember my mom getting depressed as the end of vacation approached. My brother Terry and I learned our lesson. As the last day drew near we would give mom a wide berth. I didn’t fully understand it then, but I sure do now. Thankfully Tammy’s patients pool is large enough water ski in.
Here’s the scenario. You are driving in the right lane coming up on an exit. Traveling in her 2009 Chrysler Town and Country, Janet, mother of 3, frustrated fashion critique and full-time chatter box is 2 car lengths in front of you in the center lane. Janet is having a scintillating phone conversation with her neighbor Janine about the hideous combination of her purple gardening gloves and yellow sun hat (with horrid green flowers). You see, she’s been wearing it in front yard and it’s totally destroying property values in the neighborhood. All three offspring are in the rear of the van. The two youngest are engaged in a journeyman game of “stop touching me” while the pre-teen sinks slowly into his 6th hour of the day receding from society behind a pair of headphones.
Suddenly Janet performs an Indy style pit manuever, cutting you off, crossing the gore point and squeezing the van into a space that just a millisecond prior was so small that you are now sure you’ve just witnessed a Fringe like annulment of known physical laws. It takes 10 minutes for the adrenaline to work its way through your system before your brain starts to replay the event.
I’m not sure about you, but one of the things that occurs to me at this point (and usually comes out of my mouth in some way) is “what was that person thinking?” The inevitable conclusion is that Janet was distracted and had missed her exit. I know there is an apparent contradiction here. She would say she was “about to miss” and I say “missed” the exit. No, this isn’t another sci-fi metaphor to describe two ways to observe the same event. Janet missedthe exit. Rather than simply go to the next exit, she chose to endanger everyone around her, including her own children, to avoid the inconvenience of altering her route.
If you’ve spent any time on the freeway you’ve experienced this scenario in some variation. If not this specific scenario, I’m sure you have your own Janet like experiences. It’s a common theme that plays out in various ways. If this strikes a chord with you, why does it?
In reality we all have “Janet-esque” moments. Ok, I can’t say I’ve gone full-blown Janet very often, but I certainly have my share of “Janet Junior” trophies on my mantle. I know when it happens to me my first response is defensive. “I was distracted”. Thats usually followed with rationalizations in the vein of my arrival time being important enough to justify the behavior. I’m betting you can drudge up a few of your own moments if you try.
So what’s up with all this? Granted that those at the full on Janet edge have an extra helping of what ever this is, but even the most reasonable of us have some glimmer of it. I think there’s a clue in the paragraph above. You’ll notice that I said “when it happens to me”. This never “happens” to us. We aren’t victims of some sort global mind control conspiracy or suffering from a disease that causes wild jerking motions in our arms when we are late for an appointment. The truth is that these things happen as the result of 1 or more really terrible decisions.
Janet chose to swerve for the exit. That decision was influenced by the choice to be gabbing on her cell phone and compounded by the choice not to plan her day properly. We shouldn’t be surprised though. Deflecting the responsibility for personal choice onto external factors is all the rage these days.
Society, and by society I’m (sadly) referring largely to the media, encourages us to look at all kinds of bad decisions and choices as the results of external forces. Addiction isn’t the end result of people’s poor choices with alcohol and drugs. The addict is a victim of an “epidemic“. Criminals are the product of a bad childhood or genetic predisposition not foolish decisions seeded in selfishness. If we can be convinced to look outside the actor for the cause of these actions it should come as no surprise that deflecting responsibility for our behavior has become a reflexive response.
I know that some of you who have experience with addiction are going to depart from me on this one. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about how you treat addiction. I understand that treating it as if it were a disease has been effective at helping people to recover. What I’m saying is that treating it like a disease isn’t the same as saying it is a disease. People don’t get infected with addiction, it starts with a choice.
I know I’m bucking the trend here and I won’t gain any ground with some. It’s probably an unreasonable expectation to ask people to return to an assumption of personal responsibility before deflecting and pointing fingers. So I know that I’ll make some people angry with my point of view. All I can do is apologize and say forgive me but you see “The devil made me do it”.
A Plague of Buses 