Streetwise Solutions for Dumb Drivers
Recently, this paper’s Highway 1 section began taking questions from the studio audience, and on the first go-round someone asked a question that has gnawed at me for years.
Heather Wall of Irvine, who has clearly lost too many years of her life to looky-loos, wondered why the CHP or Caltrans hasn’t developed “a quickly inflatable wall that could block the view of an accident from oncoming traffic.”
California Highway Patrol Sgt. Tim Malley was mildly amused by the suggestion, but I think it’s a perfectly splendid idea.
In fact, I would go one, or perhaps 17, steps further. I think that upon establishing residency in Los Angeles, one should have to sign a waiver that allows the CHP to vaporize any car that, due to impact or accident, is drawing the sort of gawking that should really be reserved for a Tom Cruise sighting.
To subsidize the reimbursement to drivers of the now nonexistent vehicles, five cents will be added to the gasoline tax. A bargain, when you consider the fistfuls of money most of us would be willing to hand out the driver-side window to escape rubbernecking gridlock.
It should also be a fineable offense to have your vehicle break down on the freeway due to imperfect maintenance. Why should the rest of us suffer because some drivers are too lazy or over-scheduled to remember that oil must be replenished, that gas is required for a car to keep moving, that the water in their sports bottles might be put to better use in the radiator? Talk about a city revenue generator. And if you can’t seem to keep up to date on these things, well, this is the reason most of us get married.
Some of the streetwise technology already in place could be put to use to actually improve the lives of motorists. If cameras can be used to nab stoplight runners, then they can be used to capture stoplight harassers. You know, those disturbed individuals who use those minutes to hurl sexual insults at or otherwise verbally abuse and threaten their fellow drivers, and then roar off into the sunset.
So get them on film. And then arrest them. Or send the tapes to their moms.
It would also be great if car horns could be programmed to say “Excuse me,” “Thank you” and “I’m so sorry.” How hard could this be, really, and just think of all the trouble it would prevent.
I’m pretty sure we could also program cars to monitor, and correct, bad driving habits. Some cars are now equipped to sound a warning if something or someone gets within so many inches of their back bumpers, in the hopes of decreasing the number of children killed by cars backing up. Of course, this is the best use of such technology.
But once they’ve perfected that, wouldn’t it be great if after so many minutes of tailgating, a smart car would simply get off at the next available exit and sit quietly for five or 10 minutes until its driver came to his or her senses? Or if the car of a cautious driver “knew” to keep out of the left lane?
Just imagine a world in which cars simply refused to have their horns honked for no good reason when driving through tunnels. Bliss.
But the best feature any car could have is subtext. Like in “Annie Hall” when Woody Allen’s character and Diane Keaton’s character are having this inane conversation while their real thoughts run across the bottom of the screen.
That way, we could learn that the station wagon that just cut us off is really “single mom, 3 kids, late for job intvw” or the driver of the BMW that has changed lanes 15 times in as many minutes is “about to turn 50, not coping well” or the Miata with a tendency to drift “just met woman of her dreams, and her husband.”
Which doesn’t really excuse road behavior that could get someone killed, but it might make it a bit easier for the rest of us to understand.
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Mary McNamara can be reached at mary.mcnamara@latimes.com.
