We do it while shaving. We do it while eating and especially while drinking. We do it while reading the newspaper, brokering business deals, reining in the kids or playing air drums on the dash. Sometimes, even, we’ve been known to do it while painting our toenails or having sex.
We do it so much that we practically forget we can kill someone–or ourselves.
It is, the experts say, a collective attitude problem. We just don’t take driving seriously.
“We’ve turned the automobile into just another living room,” said Char Miller, director of urban studies at Trinity University in San Antonio. “They have all of the things we once had at home–to the point where we feel as though we shouldn’t have to interact with anyone else [on the road]. And that leads to all sorts of problems.”
Despite enormous progress in vehicle safety features and roadway design, despite massive campaigns against drunken driving and for seat belt use, 40,000 people still die on U.S. roads every year.
Researchers say speeding and red-light running have reached record levels–thanks in part to ever-more-powerful engines and the glamorization of fast, aggressive driving in auto ads and entertainment.
“First, people don’t see these things–speeding, running red lights–as big deals,” said spokesman Russ Rader of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “And secondly, they don’t think that there’s much of a chance that they’re going to get a ticket. And they’re right about that. Police can’t be everywhere.”
Most analysts agree that larger–and more luxurious–vehicles tend to isolate us from the sensation of driving and give us a false sense of security.
Superior suspension systems dampen vibrations. Improved insulation blocks out road noise–and concert surround-sound audio systems take care of the rest. Heightened horsepower makes cruising along at 75 or 80 m.p.h. feel like 50 or 55.
The great irony is that cars have never been safer than they are today–with their dual front and side airbags, crumple zones, anti-lock brakes, collapsible steering wheels, breakaway engine mounts, and stability and traction controls.
Last year, Infiniti even debuted a “lane-departure warning system” that alerts drivers when they’re drifting to the side. Other automakers have sensors that detect when you’re coming too close to the car in front of you. And Nissan, Volvo, Saab, Mercedes and Honda have all studied the use of eye-movement monitors that detect when a driver is nodding off.
“These features are a double-edged sword,” said industry analyst James Hall of the automotive market research firm Auto Pacific Inc. “On the one hand, they’re what the consumer wants. On the other, they become one more excuse to be less attentive on the road.”
Bad driving has caused so much carnage that last year the World Health Organization declared it a public health issue.
Like so many of modern society’s ills, the problem is often blamed, at its root, on a general loss of civility.
To put it bluntly, people are more rude, crude and confrontational than they were a generation or two ago.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and alBerto Trevino (atrevino@tribune.com)
