As clogs around the city become more and more intense during the "Seattle Squeeze," drivers are more and more losing their marbles. One example suffices to make my point: Yesterday at the corner of Denny Way and Westlake Avenue, men and women operating the most irrational mode of urban transportation ever conceived refused to believe they were stuck because others were stuck. What could not enter their minds was the idea that absolutely nothing could be done about the clog. Instead of imagining the system—of which they were a part—had hit a hard limit, they imagined the "bad driver." This mythical character took possession of their imaginations and would not let it go. The honking exploded in this and that car because each driver was possessed by the idea that one or some or all of these other drivers were the problem and not them or the form of transportation. But the bad Seattle driver is as useful to you, stuck in traffic, as the Greek god Hermes.
But for those who were waiting sensibly on the sidewalk for the 8 route bus, we could see what the drivers trapped in the limited language of their car could not see. The light ahead was red and so there was no use honking at other cars, those imagined bad drivers whose number could not stop multiplying in the minds of these car-locked drivers.
What the users of public transportation or passing pedestrians saw, again and again, was a driver attempting the impossible: a desperate dash to freedom at the end of a yellow light. Invariably they got stuck in the crosswalk, or blocked lanes for other cars permitted to move by their lights. One driver, in a Prius no less, did exactly this mad-dash thing, got stuck in the crosswalk, and went honking-nuts. The pedestrians would have none of it (they walked around the car). And there was no space beyond the traffic lights that could accommodate the driver. Again, a pedestrian could see that nothing was moving. All cars ahead were stuck waiting for the light to turn, and beyond that, other cars were stuck waiting for their lights to turn. This example of jam-drama cannot be exceptional or isolated. We can, with confidence, imagine it happening all over the city at all rush hours.
Nothing, as you can see, can be done about these blasted clogs. They are here to stay until something radical is done. But something can be done about the noise caused by the useless honking. This is the form of language that the driver (a supreme talking ape) is reduced to. It is all they can say, and this language is almost never directed at a danger or used to alert a pedestrian of a danger. It is simply the language of frustration. And it often makes a situation worse, and opens the way to an escalation that often concludes in what is commonly called "road rage." What to do? Just ban honking. Make it pay. This barking at other cars does nothing but a nuisance. Punish this noise. Punish it hard.
