Pedestrian Protest : She Marches to Drummer Who Doesn’t Drive a Car

Great. Here I am, stuck in another rush-hour traffic jam. Might as well write off the next hour.

“Excuse me, sir. I’m walking in protest of the automobile.”

What’s this? Is that lady in the street talking to me?

“We just have too many automobiles. We are choking to death. It’s time for more mass transit, and no more freeways!”

She’s nuts. Better just roll up my window and stare straight ahead, concentrate on the rows of red tail lights as far as the eye can see, the exhaust fumes filling the air .... Maybe she has a point ...

Mary Dixon is not crazy, but she does have a point to make. “I hate technology,” she says simply, shaking her fist at a passing jet. “And I have always been an enemy of the automobile.”

“I can just see what it’s doing to us--everyone is indebted to it, it stresses us out, it is partially responsible for the greenhouse effect. It’s obvious to me that this whole automobile thing has just gone too far.”

For a long time, Dixon, 55, a resident of Albuquerque, N.M., talked about the evils of the automobile to anyone who would listen, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that no one was taking her seriously. So she took her message to the streets--literally.

Dixon recently walked from Los Angeles to San Diego to illustrate her point, and missed no opportunity along the way to lecture passing motorists.

Nobody Laughed

“A few people were embarrassed that I would talk to them in their cars, but people did not laugh at me,” Dixon said. “Usually it would generate a good conversation about the automobile, and they could see it was an important issue.”

“We’re led to believe that everybody in Southern California is having this love affair with the automobile, but I found that a lot of people don’t like their cars, and all the stress and time and money it’s costing them.”

It took Dixon 15 days to complete her journey, walking 18 to 25 miles a day. She stayed in youth hostels and cheap motels along the way, even sleeping outdoors one night. Since walking on freeways is illegal, Dixon restricted her ramblings to the beaches and the coastal highways.

She had no sponsors for her trip, no corporate backers or advertisers. The only money Dixon was given for her journey was a $10 bill, slipped into her skirt pocket by a sympathetic young surfer during a church service in Huntington Beach.

Following Old Highway 1, Dixon arrived in San Diego on Monday. Her trip ended at UC San Diego, where she expected to find the type of inexpensive accommodations usually located near college campuses. Unable to find a hotel room for less than $69, she chose to take a bus to the American Youth Hostel on Udall Street in Ocean Beach.

“I thought Southern California was the obvious place to do this, because the automobile is more abundant here than anywhere in the world,” Dixon said. “When you’re here, you just become so steeped in it you don’t see it. It kind of creeps up on you. I think it takes an outsider to see it and scream about it.”

The Freeway Mentality

Dixon said she enjoyed her trip, but was sometimes overwhelmed by the freeway mentality in the Southland.

“I had good luck, and I had good weather, but this man-made environment is harsher than I thought it would be. You can walk for miles, and it’s like being in the Sahara Desert if you’re looking for food and water or companionship. Nothing but cars and trucks going by--whiz, whiz, whiz!”

Dixon’s knowledge of Southern California had been limited to occasional visits to her son, who lives in Playa del Rey, part of Los Angeles.

“When I visited him, I was just shocked about the traffic and the fact that everyone just sort of accepts it,” she said. “Every time someone would come to visit him, they’d walk in the door looking so stressed, and the first thing they’d do is blurt out some nightmare story about a traffic jam or accident.”

“Yet my son and his friends all think they would solve their traffic problems if they could just buy another, better car,” she said.

Dixon said her son, Joel, an engineer with Lockheed Corp. in Los Angeles, was nervous about her plans to strike out from his house and walk to San Diego. “He was worried at first. He thought it was a little irregular, to say the least.”

Don’t Jump In Like Her

But he and Dixon’s two daughters--both of whom live in Albuquerque--have had time to become used to their mother’s crusades. Dixon said she has been a social and political activist since she was in her 30s “and this country was in its ‘60s.” Her children, she said, “are sympathetic to my point of view, but they don’t jump in with both feet like I do.”

Dixon went to the University of New Mexico law school in the early 1970s, intending to “change the world” by practicing law on behalf of women, consumers and the poor. But she abandoned a legal career when she realized it involved a lot of research and writing. “I’d rather talk,” Dixon said.

Her activities since have included helping establish a battered-women’s center and working to educate parents about the dangers of letting their children watch too much television.

Dixon said she lives a simple life and supports herself by sewing, baby-sitting and doing other odd jobs. She does not have a car and has owned only one in her life: a forest green Volkswagen Karmann Ghia with leopard-skin print upholstery, which she bought when she was in her 20s and “thought I had the world by the tail.”

Dixon has found San Diego a hospitable place, where “something about the air just makes you feel good.” She plans to stay for a few weeks, exploring the footpaths and taking her message to local politicians.

On Wednesday, Dixon found a sympathetic ear at the offices of City Councilman Bruce Henderson, where she spoke to intern Tiffany Smith. Henderson was the author of Proposition K, passed by the city voters in November, which calls for employers to institute staggered work hours to reduce traffic.

Dixon also contacted aides at the offices of Mayor Maureen O’Connor and County Supervisor John McDonald, and said her ideas about mass transit were well received. She also plans to speak with officials at the Metropolitan Transit Development Board during her stay.

During her journey, Dixon said, she also learned that Southern California is not as scary as television and movies make it out to be. “We are so led to believe that this country is full of crazies and we have to lock ourselves in, but I did not find that to be true at all.”

“I found people to be very nice, and nothing frightening happened,” she said. “Everybody said I would get murdered, but no harm befell me, and no one even tried to harm me.”