It's About Time

Stop Driving M.A.D.D. by Suzanne M. Schweikert M.D. Copyright 2003 All Rights Reserved Comments, thoughts, and personal experiences on time related topics are welcome. Email: Dr.Schweikert@WritersMonthly.com

It’s About Time… To Stop Driving Ourselves M.A.D.D.

It seems that every other column I write is about driving or cars. Well, this one is no exception. One thing that always seems to happen to me around this time of year, is that someone tells me a tragic story of how someone’s fiancé, sibling, child, or parent died in a car accident on Christmas. And it never fails to shake me from my naïve holiday spirit, and put shivers of fear in my heart.

But this year, before anyone had a chance to unsettle me this way, the fires in San Diego did the same job. Several local people died in car crashes while trying to escape the flames. And I asked myself, aren’t the deaths of all these people who die in car accidents on the other days and months of the year just as tragic as those that occur on Christmas? With all our technology, why haven’t we made our cars, roads, and driving behavior safer? Is it really acceptable to lose more people this way?

After all, these days many of us find ourselves rallying against one sort of death or another: death by warfare, death by assisted suicide, death by hand guns left in the night stand, death by automatic weapons brought to school, death by cancer, death by night clubs, death by terrorism, and death by smoking, amongst others. But why is nobody out there protesting death by driving too fast, too slow, too distractedly, too tiredly, or too inebriated?

Well, come to think of it, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (M.A.D.D.) protests death by driving while inebriated. But it seems that many of the car deaths I hear about happen when the driver fell asleep at the wheel, or spilled his coffee, or was in too much of a hurry to see the kids at the crosswalk. Why haven’t these deaths also become part of our cultural collective consciousness?

I still remember the friend I lost when his truck flipped over, just days before our senior year of high school was to start. Counselors were there to talk to us about it, but what really changed? I also remember others who have died in cars over the years. Some were acquaintances, some just smiling yearbook photos shown on the news, and others, the singular word "fatality," echoing through my car as I drove home, stuck in an endless sea of traffic. These people were all exceedingly important to someone. The anniversaries of their deaths are as racked with pain as any Christmas.

And now that we’re on the subject, why do we call these "accidents" anyways? What is so accidental about car crashes? If not premeditated, then aren’t they are at least predictable? And aren’t things that are predictable also preventable? It seems that people who are stressed out, running late, frustrated about wasting their lives in traffic, or just plain exhausted, are bound to make a few mistakes. Is this really accidental, or is it the price we pay for the pace we keep?

Yet for all their righteous anger, has M.A.D.D. really stopped us from drinking and driving? They have appealed to our consciences, but to what end? For many of us, the holidays are for celebrating, and this often means drinking beverages which lighten the weight on our social conscience. Now, I’m all for a little less guilt and stress, but isn’t that why the message of M.A.D.D. never seems to get across? It seems that our consciences are all taking a much-needed siesta, just when we need them the most.

So, why don’t we all have breathalyzers attached to our car ignitions this holiday season, to make sure we can’t get behind the wheel and kill someone? Just as alcohol lightens our spirits, it impairs our ability to recognize and tell our friends when they are not safe to drive. A device like this would be the one friend you could count on, when all your other friends gave their consciences a break about the same time you did.

And why not try to enjoy the time we spend in traffic, rather than speed through, around, and over it, like maniacs on an obstacle course? I know this sounds far-fetched, but don’t many of us wish we had time to relax with a good book? Well, there are thousands of books on tape, not to mention undiscovered music and comedy routines we can amuse ourselves with.

Have you ever listened to the music of Hawaiian, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, while driving? Your very heart rate seems to slow down in rhythm to his chanting melodies, making it impossible to push too hard on the accelerator. And if you roll the window down and let the wind blow through your hair, you almost feel like you are on Hawaiian time, as if the music has altered your state of mind.

And lastly, why don’t we develop an effective mass transit system in Southern California? Is it really too expensive? Haven’t most of us seen how well it works in other cities, or at least in movies and on television? Why not give ourselves a subway system as a Christmas present this year?

It wouldn’t cost nearly as much paying for all the spinal cord and head injury patients who will be entering (and never leaving) our long-term care facilities over the next twenty or thirty years. And it wouldn’t cost our pocketbooks even a fraction of what the funeral of a loved one would cost our hearts. No, that kind of cost, on Christmas or any time of year, would simply be too much to pay.

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