Outa My Way!

Your attitude about driving down neighborhood streets, I’m beginning to think, says a lot about your character. It might even peg your political affiliation.

Streets go through residential and commercial areas. People live on both sides or shop on both sides. Cars on the streets, people on the sidewalks. Trouble is, people have to cross the streets.

It’s their neighborhood, they spend a lot of time there. Some of the cars on their streets carry them home and to work, but many are just passing through. Either way, how they drive tells a tale.

Do they drive slowly with an eye out for residents, young or old, walking or biking? Or do they plow through with a mind that says, "I’ve got the right of way. People need to watch out for me."

We’ve arm wrestled with this fundamental issue from the dawn of time and the birth of our nation. Should my individual rights yield or even tolerate moderation in the interest of the common good?

As I write, the House has dim-wittedly favored energy-wasting incandescent light bulbs over way-more-efficient fluorescents. In Dim and Dimmer, Robert B. Semple Jr. reports the national savings for flipping the switch the other way would be “equivalent to 30 large power plants; household savings of up to $200 a year; and 100 million fewer tons of carbon dioxide pollution yearly, roughly the amount from 17 million cars.”

So when I see a neatly dressed macho man plunging his two-ton SUV with a war-like model name down a residential street, I know his vote—dimmer.