Politics and Dharma

Just a couple of weeks driving cross-country is all it takes to understand the inherent lunacy of “speed limits”. They’re posted everywhere, but many people disregard them. Enforcement is selective and can never be applied to all violations. The top speed for the exact same traffic geometry can vary between 55 and 90 mph, depending on your location and time of day. Even so, the actual ‘average speed’ on highways can reach speeds 10, even 20 mph faster than posted maximums. (Some of the fastest driving I’ve ever had to do was on the Kansas Turnpike, which is like tihs hidden corner of the Autobahn.) 

It’s more than just the blatant, small-town opportunism: that lame excuse to funnel transients into local shops and fill the town coffers. It’s that foolish waste of time to pay for patrol officers and speed traps - and yet fail to insist on a higher training standard for all drivers. We demand hours of expensive training, rigorous testing and state certification before we’ll allow people to give haircuts, babysit children, or teach gym. Yet anybody who can guess 12 of 16 multiple-choice answers and demonstrate operational control and knowledge of in-town traffic laws can get a license to drive a wide range of vehicles - some quite large - at speeds varying from 10 to 80 mph.

We act as if driving a car is a genetic human right, when it is a task that requires a good deal of training, perception and rapid judgment. We know that teenagers and seniors have difficulty maintaining focus or making judgments, and we all have the expectations that sight and hearing deteriorates for everyone over time. Yet any testing we do after the initial receipt of the license is perfunctory and never in context with the age of the driver.

Not only is testing inadequate, training is non-existent unless the applicant is under 18. Many people get their first formal driving training taking “defensive driving” courses as a result of a moving violation, sometimes many years after their initial license test was taken. These are people driving every morning and evening, up and down the highways and avenues, same as you. Driving will little to no training - out of habit, if you will. It’s a wonder we don’t have more accidents every day.

Frankly, there are too many people on the road now. There are too many people who feel that they must transport themselves directly from point A to point B in every circumstance. The interstate highway system has very nearly lost its effectiveness due to the overcrowding from people who only drive their single-occupancy SUV’s from home to work and back.

So I’ve got an idea so green it makes Kermit the Frog look purple. You can skip it if you’ve left your tin-foil beanie cap in your other pants. It’s crazy!

The Big Idea

We need to significantly raise the bar on who can get a license and then lower what kind of access they get to streets and highways. Basically, you expand the definitions for commercial licenses, and then restrict the basic civilian, non-commercial driver’s license to small cars in low-speed neighborhood driving — no trucks, no vans, no SUVs - and no highways!

Getting just this should require 20 hours of college-level classroom work - not just driving a car, but basic maintenance and emergency repair, ownership and financing, navigational strategies, and working within traffic, 10 hours of in-car operational training, followed by another 10 hours of driving strategy “workshops”. Just taking the test needs to cost a significant fraction of anticipated annual operating expenses.

Drivers of large, long-haul rigs are already required to undergo significant training and expensive testing. So, anyone driving as a part of their job should get a commercial license rated for the specific vehicle and task that they’re trained and licensed to handle. If someone needs to haul materials in a truck or van, they need to have additional written instruction and operational training. Even potential cabbies should get additional training for navigation skills, hospitality, and business management. High-speed drivers would be specifically trained to drive ambulances, firetrucks, and delivery vehicles.

Highways should be limited to high-speed and long-haul traffic only. Eliminating the larger part of traffic from the roads would greatly improve safety everywhere. Restricting non-commercial vehicles to local traffic may force people to finally adjust their economy to match their ecology. People might be finally forced to live close to their sources of income again, and build communities based on shared trading networks.

I’m not suggesting that we create serfs out of suburbanites: folks aren’t being trapped in their neighborhoods to strangle and die. Public transportation and cabs were how people got around before there were two cars in every garage, and they can still be highly effective ways of getting around - especially so the more people use them. When I can travel to cities and not need to rent a car because everyone uses the train, that’s when it’s clear to me what a tragedy it is when everyone is alone together in their cars on the highway, and not together interacting in cars on a train.

So how many problems are solved here? How many people die annually in car accidents? This would be nearly completely eliminated. Rising oil prices? Covered. Global warming? Check. Building communities and strengthening local economies? Got it. Rush hour? Rename it to relax hour. Business bottom lines would boom due to the increased efficiency of highway transportation, lower oil costs, and reduced accident rates. Speed limits would be a thing of the past because cops would no longer need to patrol the roads and highways to keep idiot drivers from killing each other.

Only if we have the audacity to suggest that we might want to improve the regulation over who can fire their one-ton land torpedoes into vehicles, houses, people, or cattle. I have perfect faith that something so sensible would never happen.

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