The Freeway Is No Place for Thinking
Remember Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson in “Double Indemnity”--hard-boiled insurance men, world-weary, shocked by nothing? Today’s insurance providers seem a bit more, well, sensitive. L.A-based Farmers Insurance, for example, recently conducted a national survey and was shocked, shocked to discover that men and women are shaving and applying makeup while commuting to work.
How can this be surprising to anyone who has even visited Los Angeles? OK, OK, the fact that 2.1% of the women surveyed admitted to shaving and 1.3% of the men to applying makeup is a bit startling, but certainly the 8% of both genders who style their hair while commuting is stunning only in its obvious lack of truthfulness on the part of those surveyed. Eight percent? Maybe only 8% have actual hair dryers plugged into the cigarette lighter, but if we’re talking comb action, they’d better stick a nine in front of that eight.
The survey also found that one in 10 people reads newspapers or books while driving, and 5.6% admitted to changing their clothes.
I actually find it difficult to believe so many Angelenos read while driving. The brakes-squealing, gridlocking effort most L.A. drivers require to simply absorb the electronic sentence “PCH is closed at Topanga” seems to preclude the digestion of something as complex as a newspaper or a novel.
What concerns me, potential fellow driver/fatality, are not the Norelco wielders or pantyhose strippers, but the great vague majority in the survey, the folks who claim they use their commutes for “self-improvement or family togetherness,” the 56% of the population who say they use drive time as “a brainstorming session or for mental organization.”
Self-improvement, as I understand it, usually begins with the acknowledgment of a problem, the admission of some kind of shortcoming. This is not the state of mind I would choose for, say, that guy in the Expedition, the one who is attempting to merge into my front seat. Rather, I want him thinking good thoughts about himself, to feel well-being flood his entire being and express itself in vehicular benevolence.
“Family togetherness” is also tricky, implying as it does conversation between family members. What could be more distracting for any driver? Especially during travels with small children, the car is a disciplinary no-man’s land. Short of pulling over and dragging the gum-spitter out onto the shoulder of the 405, the driving parent has little option beyond the neck-wrenching swivel-glare and screaming at the rearview mirror. What I like to see, what fills me with driver confidence, is family apartness--Mom and Dad in the front seat, staring straight ahead, not talking, kids in the back staring blankly out the window. Safety first, that’s my motto.
“Brainstorming” and “mental organization” are also time bombs as far as I’m concerned. Brainstorming what? A corporate takeover? A bank robbery? A citywide effort to get all these clueless rental-car drivers off this freaking freeway? And mental organization, that is out as well. What does this mean? Mentally dividing the property in preparation for divorce? Calculating how long it will take you to pay off your credit cards?
Let’s face it: When sitting in traffic, the mind tends not to wander the sylvan paths or fly like the mighty eagle over the sundering seas. It tends to obsess, fret and seethe. Is this the state of mind we want our fellow motorists in?
Wouldn’t it be better if everybody were just fixing their hair?
