Driving is the evilest thing American humans are expected to do. I know that’s a bold claim. We do so many evil things, deciding which contains the most evil is like asking which lime is the most sour. They all make your lips puck-up, should it matter? But when you’re only eating limes you get used to the sour. You might even start to enjoy it.
I grew up in the suburbs, an in-between non-place that allows middle class Americans to escape the regional limitations of accent or cultural heritage. That’s why people on family sitcoms don’t need to mention where they live. There’s still debate about where Leave it to Beaver took place, and most of the cast and crew are dead. Wherever the Beaver lived, it was within driving distance of Doritos.
If I leave my house to buy some Doritos, stop behind someone at a red light, walk into CVS, use the self-checkout, and drive back home, I’ve done something social. I didn’t talk to anyone, except maybe a “welcome in!” from the CVS employee. But that’s less of a social act and more of an economic one. No, the social act occurred when I stopped behind someone at the red light. I saw that they drive a dark red Kia Soul, and read the “You’re doing Great!” bumper sticker under the “Georgia State Mom” sticker on her back windshield. I know more about this woman than I know about the CVS employee, and I don’t even know what she looks like.
The light turns green, and the Georgia State Mom doesn’t move forward. What do I do? Honking is the obvious option, but how long do I wait? Honking immediately seems rude. The experienced driver knows what I mean. You’re first at the light and it changes, but before you even process the switch from red to green (or top to bottom for my color-blind friends), someone honks. It never fails to make me angry. And hey, I’ve been the one who honks. I had places to be.
What I should do is give the person a few seconds to notice the change (maybe they’re finishing a really good TikTok), and then give a light honk. The car’s equivalent of “hey man, pay attention.”
And what about the guy who said hi to me at CVS? He had to get to work somehow. He didn’t take the bus, the only buses in the suburbs are yellow. He might have ordered an Uber, but that’s just someone else’s car. He probably didn’t walk. I don’t walk to work, and my job is right across from his. I’ve walked to work before. The path is dangerous. My biggest threat? Drivers.
Last year I drove from my home in the south to visit a friend in the north. I could do that without hesitation thanks to the interstate highway system, the reason Eisenhower is the only Republican (besides Lincoln) Democrats will praise. It wasn’t always the taken-for-granted roadway that we know and merge, however. Back in the 60s Malvina Reynolds called the freeway a “Cement Octopus,” feeding on the gas tax and growing all the time. She played this song at several protests against a proposed freeway that would destroy a San Francisco park. In a narrow 6-5 vote the city decided to keep the park and reroute the octopus. Protests work.
Not everyone had the time or resources to enact highway protests. Over 1 million people, mostly non-white, were displaced by the highway system in those initial years. Think about that on your next road trip. While the highways enabled me to connect with my friend, how many families lost their farms, lost their communities, and how many creatures both cute and ugly lost their homes? But little people like me are only half the reason we decided those people could sleep somewhere else.
In his initial message to congress in support of a nationalized highway system, Eisenhower wrote that “Individual and commercial movement” across the country was ceaseless. This can be seen on our highways today. Privately owned Cars and semi-trucks carrying Doritos (and other stuff probably) are more common than communal buses. Actually, the last bus I saw on the highway was some sort of black-tie party bus. I don’t think that’s the commerce Eisenhower meant, but it is commerce.
In the same message, Eisenhower expressed concern that disorganized highways lead to more accidents. In this respect collaborating on the highway system was a success. The number of road deaths per 100 million was 6.06 in 1955, compared to 1.33 in 2022.
Every Tuesday and Friday a big truck pulls up outside my work. When it comes, we say “truck’s here.” Not “the truck’s here,” or “that particular truck arrived,” (it’s not the same actual truck every time) or even “the guys who work for the same corporation as us just pulled in.” It’s truck, a singular entity delivering the raw ingredients we use to make a product. The guys who unload truck, the same guys who drive it, interact with us very little. The most interaction I’ve had with them involved not doing dishes so they could roll the ingredients in without slipping and dying. I asked them “are you bringing more stuff back here?” He said no. I kept doing dishes. By the time I finished, truck was gone. One time I was out late and noticed truck was delivering ingredients at 2 am. I didn’t know truck worked the late shift. Then I realized my company would be screwed if truck didn’t deliver everything to every store. I’ve been in this situation. We didn’t have mediums for two days. Until truck came back. Without truck, I’d be out of a job.
Of course, truck is not a truck. Truck is a vehicle with a combustion engine driven by a real man, while another real man sits next to him. Whether they switch I don’t know. I say men because I haven’t seen a woman pull up in truck. I don’t know why that is either.
When I was (briefly) a Boy Scout, we took road trips to camping sites. Sometimes we would pass a truck and all of us would pull at the air, encouraging the trucker to use the horn. They usually did, and we usually cheered. I hope that happens to the boys on our truck, and I hope they enjoy it. We did.
I haven’t done a good job of proving that driving is evil. But within all evil there is some good. Visiting friends is good. Creating art that supports community is good. Protecting lives and livelihoods is good. But whose lives do we protect?
When I started driving I was surprised by the amount of dead animals. “Roadkill” is a clever word that reduces animals to objects as so many of our words do (hamburger, bacon, mcgriddle). My first road kill was a deer, impressive for a beginner.
I want to end with a brief story which proves driving is evil. The place I work has “insiders” and “drivers.” The insiders make the food, and the drivers deliver it. Drivers tend to make more than insiders, depending on tips. Drivers also have the more physically dangerous job. Commuters will risk your life, their lives, and their children’s lives so they can get home by 5:30 and watch Netflix. These people see yellow lights as a challenge, and following distance as weakness. I was guilty of this myself. The more deliveries a driver makes, the more tips they take home, the more Doritos I can buy.
It was during rush-hour I was complicit in murder. It was a turtle. I was one of the last creatures to see them alive, in the middle of traffic, and drove past because I had product to deliver. Coming back I saw their shell was crushed, and their guts had spilled out onto the asphalt. At least I learned something about turtle anatomy. On a later delivery I saw someone had pushed its limp body and internal organs to the grass. I was glad I didn’t have to get more blood on my tires.
Calling those who make the food “insiders” implies that those who deliver the food are “outsiders.” I think I’ll be an insider for a while. It won’t make a difference, of course. They’ve already hired a new outsider.
Shit! I forgot about climate change. *puck puck* Boy, this lime IS sour!
Leave a Reply